Okay I have a major problem that I have no idea how to fix at this point. When I turn my computer on, it will stop responding every time. I tried putting in my windows xp disk to reinstall it but it won't even get that far because it just stops and won't respond. My keyboard stops working and pretty much my computer freezes. It still detects my hard drive is there so I have no idea what is going on in that thing. Help please!!

Can you get into the BIOS? If so, try and set default settings and restart to see if that helps
Post back

I did what you said and it let me to got this screen that said something along the lines of start windows xp(bootscreen) or just start windows xp, something like that. Now it won't even get that far... :/

Any changes that either happened or that you perhaps made to your computer around the time that the problem started; particularly any software or hardware that you installed or setup.

Did it just start happening, Try tapping the F8 key when starting the PC to see if you can make it to the boot menu option screen, if you get this far, choose Last known good configuration option



In your bios, make sure the cd rom is set to boot first and see if you can do a repair installation - it seems you have tried this but make sure cd rom as first boot device

Repair Installation
A Repair Install will replace the system files with the files on the XP CD used for the Repair Install. It will leave your applications and settings intact, but Windows updates will need to be reapplied.

A Repair Install will replace files altered by adware and malware, but will not fix an adware, malware problem.
Perform a Repair Installation

OK sorry for the wait. I got to the screen you talked about and choose last known best config and it took me to a black screen and didn't do anything else. I'm starting to think that the longer I leave my computer off, the further it lets me go until it freezes on me, just a thought. Now there are two things I did do that might cuase a problem. I was changing my whole computers theme around to a half life theme(a game) I did change my boot screen I think, maybe just my login screen, I don't remember. Second thing is I slaved a 20 gig hd to my computer when I first shut it down after changing my theme around. I don't know if either of these would cause it to freeze but there you go.

Does the BIOS see the 2nd drive connected as ? When you attached the 2nd drive, how did you "slave the drive" the same ribbon cable or another cable> what type of drive is it IDE?

Disconnect the 20 gig drive and try to boot to see if that may be the issue

I used the same connection cable to connect both drives. As far as your other question on the ide, I have no clue because I disconnected it once the problem arose thinking that might be causing it. Only my original drive is connected at the moment. Which it is detecting that one thankfully. I know this isn't too much help for you but this is all I know. Its freezing a lot on me and I have no clue why, at this point, I'm OK with erasing my hd if that's the problem but I don't think it is because I unplugged all hard drives one time and it still froze on me.

Try tapping the F8 on startup to get to the boot menu and choose safe mode, if you can get into safe mode see if you can uninstall the theme that you added, hopefully it won't come down to reinstalling, not sure how you added the theme through and install program or used the appearance option in display settings

Safe mode, right click desktop , properties and the theme tab - see if you can change it back to the one you had

Of the 2 options above, see what will work for you, see if you can uninstall theme or change theme

I clicked safe mode and it started I guess checking or loading files on this black screen, then about 5 seconds into it it frooze on me again, it just won't let me get into my computer at all, just keeps freezing, like my processor is freezing which its not because I put it in this computer at it worked flawlessly...

Well, if you are able to make it to the boot menu you should be able to boot the computer with the cd in the drive and attempt the repair installation

Make sure cd rom is set to boot first and then see if you can do the repair installation posted above

But if you can get to that menu, you should be able to boot to cd rom

I'll try it, but the more you help me, the more I start to think it's a problem dealing with another part of my computer instead of the hard drive simply because it freezes just the same when my hd isn't connected... but I'll give it a try and post again in about 20 minutes

The problem sounds like the OS cannot start whether you are trying normal mode or safe mode the OS is just freezing, just trying to eliminate possiblilites. Does you PC have a floppy drive or do you have a portable flash drive. If so you can try to boot with one of these with a startup disk. To be able to do this you would have to set your bios to boot to the floppy or the usb if your PC supports that.

If you do have floppy or flash disk that can be booted to, copy the files in the link below to either a floppy or the flash drive and try to boot machine with either the floppy or USB and have your XP disc in the cd rom drive

The files in the download are starup files that will give you cd rom support at a DOS prompt

If your cd rom is d:, at the DOS prompt type, d: <enter>
Then type setup, this should start the setup for XP
Now try to do the repair install from there

RapidShare: 1-Click Webhosting

Name of file: Startup_Disk.rar

The file is safe, I had uploaded it myself

Any luck

OK I went there, got the file, unzipped it and put every individual file into a floppy disk, there was another zipped file within that temp folder(the original zip file) so I took the files out of it and put them in temp folder with the other files, is that what I should have done

All of the files in the temp folder should be the only files on the disk you copied to, leave the cab file as is

Sorry I want to make sure I get this right to the t. all I do is extract the files to the floppy, now do I leave the cab file in there or do I take it out, and should I leave them in the temp folder or should I just have them openly on the floppy?

No temp folder on the floppy, just the files themselves, when you click on A: drive you should have 18 files including the cab file (18 files total)

Now with the BIOS set to boot to floppy drive first, restart or start PC with xp disc in cd rom the comp should boot to DOS promt with cd rom support

OK I put the floppy in and its taking me automatically to the window that says safe mode etc.. . what should I pick or should it even be taking me there

Whoa OK... something is happening that is new. Right now its saying ntldr is missing press any key to restart, and when I press any key it keeps saying the same thing BUT my computer hasn't frooze yet and its been like that for over a minute now which it hasn't gone half that long without freezing on me. This is new so it means something is kind of going right in a sense haha hmmm

You have to make sure in the bios that the floppy drive is the first boot device

I forgot to put the xp cd in with the floppy and now its saying that ntldr is missing... I put the xp cd in just now and its still saying the same thing. What does ntldr missing mean?

NTLDR is missing
Simple "ntldr is missing" fix with boot floppy, CD-R, or USB flash


Just read through link above and go through the process step by step

Its not missing anymore, once I took the floppy out, but its just not letting me do much of anything, its just freezing too soon for me to even try to fix it. Do you think it might be a hardware malfunction and if so then what could be causing it?

Will it boot to cd rom at all? If so, you can put in new drive and install xp from scratch and then once system is up, put the drive you are having problems with in as a slave drive so you would be able to get information and files from it

I'll give it a try but it might freeze on me... we'll see I guess

If it freezes with a different drive in it, it would be sometihing with hardware, if it goes through and is able to install xp, the original problem would be a software issue
Probably wouldn't recommend changing themes though, I tried it once and did not goes as planned but didn't lose system, so I personally just keep my theme the way it is just to be safe.

All right so I put in a different hd and it still froze up on me and I know nothing is wrong with that hd too so obviously it lies in hardware elsewhere. I was thinking it might have something to do with the power supply since its freezing on me, that or the processor are the only two things I can possibly think of it being. I have an extra power supply that hopefully is good still. I'm going to switch them out and see how that goes. I'm just not leaning towards it being the processor simply because I had it in another computer today to test that theory and it never froze on me. Once I get done with the power switch I'll let you know if that worked, but give me feedback on this, what you think it could be hardware wise.

Memory, if you have more than one memory stick installed, take one out to see if it will boot, if it does it would indicate the memory you took out may be bad

If same thing happens with the stick you tookd out, put that one in and take the other one out, basically testing to see if one of the 2 memeory sticks may be bad, if you have 2

OK I just put in the other power supply, I'm about to test it out, if that isn't the problem then I'm going to test the ram out which I'm assuming that's what you mean by memory sticks. If so then I have three, one half gig, and two quarter gigs. Update you in a minute

Sorry, yes the ram - just test them out to see if system will start with one of them to try and eliminate problem fi it is ram

Wouldn't know from there - it would be memory, processor, or the drive cable not seated properly, when you put in the new drive, did you set it as master and the cd rom to first boot device and that the hard drive is seen in the BIOS

But you are getting to the boot menu indicating it would be a software issue/Operating System issue

I tested the power, the ram, both cd drives I have, my floppy drive, and I took out all of my add ons except for my graphics card. That's the only thing I haven't checked out yet, I do have a crappy processor I could check out too. Let me do that and I'll get back at you in about 5 minutes

Another thing to check is take the hard drive to another computer to see if it would boot all right, if so you could eliminate the software as a problem and you would know it is hardware realated, if you put the hard drive in another system and it freezes, it would be the hard drive

Could I slave my hd to this computer and try to do anything to help change it if it is the hard drive? If so then all I do is put it to slave and pop it on the computer right?

The only thing you could do by making it a slave drive is copy information off it, no way to change any system settings or uninstall software - it would just be seen as a storage drive

You could replace the one you are using now with the problem drive to see if it would boot or not, if it would boot, you would probably just be looking at getting a new motherboard for the other PC as the components seem to work, but you would have to confirm that the problem drive can boot in another machine

If it boots in another machine, it is a hardware issue
If same thing happens with it freezing on another machine, it is the operating system on the hard drive

If it turns out to be the operating system, change the drive to slave and change jumper on the hard drive to make it a slave drive and put in PC you are using now and then in windows explorer, format the drive

After drive is formatted, change jumnper back to master drive and put in problem PC and boot with xp cd and install XP


So, try above, will problably take you quite awhile but take your time, what you are looking for is to see where the problem is at - is it the hardware or the operating system on the hard drive

I have to call it a night right now but I will check to see what you got going on in morning.

All right, I am currently copying any files I want to keep to this hd, the messed up on is the slave drive right now, it keep restartin instead of freezin so I'm going to format it and try what you said, I'll post about it later once I do it.