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Computer help sought please



upthealbion1970

upthealbion1970

bring on the trumpets....
NSC Patron
Jan 22, 2009
8,865
Woodingdean
Hi, my old desktop refuses to start up with this message:
requ6esy.jpg

It is a dell with a pentium4, has windows xp and despite its slowness has always fired up. Bought it second hand about 6 years ago.

Any assistance greatly recieved :)

And yes I've turned if off and on again :D

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 








beorhthelm

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
35,288
assuming you dont have a CDROM, floppy or USB plugged in that its trying to boot from, that means your hard disk is knackered. not completely, enough that the bit that needs to be read to start is knackered.

if you dont have nay confidence or aptitude for computers, its the computer shop for this one. it is fixable.
 


M

Mannakin

Active member
Jun 24, 2013
101
Hove (actually!)
upthealbion1970 said:
Thanks, but that might as well be written in Greek. I should have put that I'm the least computer literate person I know :)
Click to expand...

Make sure you haven't got a USB memory stick or a bootable PC in the PC when you start the PC.

If you have neither, then it is likely that your hard disk drive has become corrupted. It may be possible to recover this is you have the original CDs with Windows on it (or can find someone with a copy). http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/ntldrntdetect.htm

Do you have anything important on the PC i.e. music, documents or photos? You have them backed up to an external disk right? No,
probably not :nono:
If your hard disk has been corrupted and you manage to get it back working, buy an external disk drive and back any important stuff up.

PCs fail - hopefully you haven't lost anything important. If you have, it's a painful way to learn to back up your PC.
 




D

Deleted member 22389

Guest
upthealbion1970 said:
Hi, my old desktop refuses to start up with this message:
requ6esy.jpg

It is a dell with a pentium4, has windows xp and despite its slowness has always fired up. Bought it second hand about 6 years ago.

Any assistance greatly recieved :)

And yes I've turned if off and on again :D

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

Can you here the Hard Drive power up when you turn on the machine?
If you do and it makes a clunking noise it might be game over.

I don't how competent you are, but one way to get data off your hard drive if it is not knackered is to boot a Linux Live CD.
You can boot Linux and run the operating system off the DVD. It should find and mount your windows drive on the desktop. Plug in your USB drive, and should be able to drag the files over.
 


S

Shropshire Seagull

Well-known member
Nov 5, 2004
8,496
Telford
NTLDR is the o/s loader
If you put your Win XP cd in and boot from that, re-running install will detect the presence of your C: drive installation and repair / correct the missing loader file and you're sorted ....
 






upthealbion1970

upthealbion1970

bring on the trumpets....
NSC Patron
Jan 22, 2009
8,865
Woodingdean
Thanks for the replies folks, I can hear something spinning up and there's no klunking sounds. Much as I'd love to upgrade I can't afford it (the joys of being a carer), and no I've never backed any of my stuff up :nono:
I didn't get any discs with it when I bought it, and I'm not competent with this type of thing at all :)
Will have to wait to get some funds together for a trip to a computer shop so no pies at the Amex for a while for me!
If anyone has any recommendations for somewhere reliable and not stupidly expensive near newhaven I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks again :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 








B

Billy the Fish

Technocrat
Oct 18, 2005
17,494
Haywards Heath
bashlsdir said:
Can you here the Hard Drive power up when you turn on the machine?
If you do and it makes a clunking noise it might be game over.

I don't how competent you are, but one way to get data off your hard drive if it is not knackered is to boot a Linux Live CD.
You can boot Linux and run the operating system off the DVD. It should find and mount your windows drive on the desktop. Plug in your USB drive, and should be able to drag the files over.
Click to expand...

^^^^^^

What he said.
 


burnee54

burnee54

East Upper Hermit
Sep 1, 2011
1,150
up the downs
I'm assuming your O/S is XP?

Press either F2 or DEL on boot up.
Set the BIOS to boot from CD and pop the XP cd into the drive.
With XP you can install windows to the same drive folder without wiping everything first.
You will still have to reinstall your programs like Office etc but your other data should be safe.
 






upthealbion1970

upthealbion1970

bring on the trumpets....
NSC Patron
Jan 22, 2009
8,865
Woodingdean
burnee54 said:
I'm assuming your O/S is XP?

Press either F2 or DEL on boot up.
Set the BIOS to boot from CD and pop the XP cd into the drive.
With XP you can install windows to the same drive folder without wiping everything first.
You will still have to reinstall your programs like Office etc but your other data should be safe.
Click to expand...

burnee54 said:
Just found this on youtube might be helpful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FifJkeLzR0

Shows you how to recover from your problem step by step.
Click to expand...

I really appreciate the advice, but I don't have the XP cd :(


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 


burnee54

burnee54

East Upper Hermit
Sep 1, 2011
1,150
up the downs
I would love to help you out but I am off on holiday in the morning. Try borrowing one from a friend. As long as you get the same version as the one on the bottom of your laptop. Just read the label carefully.
 






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