My sister did something to her computer and now it won't go past the Windows XP loading screen. It just restarts itself after that point.
Apparently, the computer froze while she was just doing regular internet browsing, listening to music, etc. She had to force it to restart by holding the power button down, and now it's in its current state.
I read another thread on here about pretty much the same issue, and I guess I should try to repair Windows? I found the disk that came with the computer, but I have no idea how to get it to boot from the disk. I've opened the boot menu and told it to boot the CD drive before the HD, but nothing different happens. Maybe the disk I have doesn't work like that? I don't know ...
Shortly after startup when the computer shows the black screen with the option of selecting the operating system, my choices are Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, or Microsoft Windows Recovery Console. When I pick Recovery Console, I get this screen:
... And then I have to hold the power button to restart the computer.
Start by switching IDE cable with the cd rom cable & reboot,this is to be sure cable is not at fault,so if it still plays up try link below,other options are available by web searching -bsod unmountable boot volume
this is the classic file corruption. Whenever you do a abnormal shutdown while windows is writing to the harddrive it might scramble some of the files needed for booting. Not to worry its an easy fix. if the drive shows up raw or you get errors that it needs format or no OS found thats a symptom of corruption.
You need to do a chkdsk c: /f this command will fix the problem 98 percent of the time. I use a bartpe bootcd to fix this type of problems. Download the bartpe file from the internet it will use your xp cd to create a bootable bartpe cd. Use the bartpe bootcd to bootup the computer, once bartpe is running go to start/run you will get the command box type the following chkdsk c: /f , this will inspect the c drive for errors and fix the errors.
The reason i don't recommend using the windows xp cd to run repairs because it might attempt to reinstall windows if your not careful and overwrite your drive.
Worst case scenario and you cant make a bartpe, just download gparted, its a linux livecd, when you boot it up open up the terminal (command prompt) and type in testdisk. Testdisk will search the hard drive for lost (corrupted) partitions. If it finds any it will let you fix it. Similar to chkdsk but more powerful. I use both with good results. But always do chkdsk first it's the easy fix. It will fix your sister computer without losing any data.
