#2
Post
by Wing Fat » Sat Oct 15, 2005 12:48 am
This kind of thing is really hard to diagnose from a distance. First, make sure you don't have anything plugged into the computer USB port. Sometimes devices can make Windows hang during load. Second, try booting Windows in Safe Mode (hold down F8 the moment Windows first starts loading and then choose Safe Mode). If you can boot in safe mode, try running the error checking utility (double click My Computer, then right click on the C drive, choose Properties, then Tools). You might be able to boot Windows into Safe Mode With Networking, then copy your files to another computer if you have a home network set up.
If the above doesn't help and you have a copy of Norton Utilities, you might be able to run that straight from the CD and check your hard drive for errors.
Finally, you might want to try reinstalling Windows from the CD ROM without formating (overwriting the existing installation). If it's a bad hard drive though, that might not work. I don't know what else is on that hard drive (if you have important financial or other data), but if you want to preserve the contents I would be very careful about trying to reinstall Windows.
There are places that specialize in data recovery but they're kind of expensive. If you have really important data you might want to send it to one of those places to be sure you recover your data.
it loads up as far as a screen that says windows xp, then goes no further. any suggestions? can i fix the problem without formatting, using the driver disks etc? or am i in trouble. if i can get the photos back i promise to send a copy to the site so they can be posted, like i told bob i would a year ago....... 
