E machine - XP won't start correctly

[PowerLee]

Hi

Girlfriend has a E Machine 330 ( don't laugh )
It has Windows XP Home preinstalled on it from new.

Its been difficult for the last few days to get it to start up & load Windows or when it did eventually start it was dead slow.

Now it wont even start Windows correctly.

Switch it on, you get E machine logo screen, then you get a Windows screen warning something about Windows didnt shut down correctly possibly due to a recent software / hardware change

Your offered 4 choices of:

Safe mode
Safe mode with networking
Safe mode with command point
Start Windows normally

Which ever one you pick it tries to start Windows, you get the black Windows XP splash screen with bar scrolling accross for a couple of seconds then screen goes blank & you end up back at start with E machine logo screen & the cycle is repeated again.

I removed 2 add on cards from the pci slots, usb card & lan card, no change to the result.
I had a look in bios & noticed the cd rom drive wasnt showing up, swopped it for a know good working drive ( actually the original one I took out last year & replaced ) & this one now shows up in bios screen but the machine still wont load Windows.

Could the hard drive be on its way out? its the original 20gig Segate unit.

Before we stick the reload disc in is there any other options to try & save it?

Cheers in advance for any advice.

Lee

 

[Stiggy]

Could the hard drive be on its way out? its the original 20gig Segate unit.

Before we stick the reload disc in is there any other options to try & save it?

It's more likely that the XP installation is just corrupted.

If your girlfriend has data she wants to keep, you should put the hard disk in another PC and back it up now.

You can try a repair install of XP (if you have a proper XP CD) which should preserve that programs and data in place. The final option is to wipe the disk and reinstall XP.

Or, you could show you really love her and buy her a new £300 notebook