so my computer doesnt boot
 

so i throw in the winows xp disc (updated version) and it does the usual, i go to "update version" and such... i was tire of the crappier old xp and needed some new antivirus software (i had to remove my old one due to some conflicts)


blah blah blah, i wait 30 mins, and go back to check it.. and it's at that screen where you press f8 or whatever with the boot options (regular, safe mode etc.)

so anyway, i press regular, im like, yea, but, then it just flips the windows screen on, and goes back to the boot options screen. i press every option and nothing...


any ideas?





so, after a little while i try to hook up my hard drive as a slave to this computer. couldnt do that (it has a second hard drive) and i couldnt get it out. it's really in there. and the screws or whatever are on the other side, but that side of my pc doenst open up. heh, shitty.


i have, for some reason this scary feeling that my c: might have been wiped for some reason. scary scary...



most importantly i just want to check if it's aok. so my new plan is this:

since (i believe) win98 can install from DOS, im gonna do that. put on win98, make sure everythings fine (if it's not, well then man. that sucks) then, just proceed to reinstall winxp.


in doing this, will i wipe out any files that are there? (besides windows files...... and if they already havent been)...


will that work? or is there something else i should do?

I would not recommend doing this. First of all the hard drive is probably formatted in NTFS, which means windows 98 will not install to begin with, and do a clean format of C:. Perhaps without warning. I would recommend burning a copy of Knoppix Linux. It is a very easy to use, newbie friendly linux, that boots offo f the cd with no install. It will automatically detect the hard drive, and you should be able to copy all important files off it and burn them to CD's.

www.knoppix.org

from there i would just suggest you do a clean install of the new windows xp version.

good luck!

aaah that site is so german! aaah

Click on the the UK/US flag on top. It's all in English too. It's very easy to use.

Also, i'm wondering, what do you mean by new/old Windows XP. There is only one XP and you update using the Windows update option in Internet Explorer. The newest update, called Service Pack 2, includes a firewall but I don't believe it includes an antivirus scanner.

A good free Antivirus scanner is called AVG. http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

Do NOT intall 98 over the XP, as was already mentioned it will ask, then proceed to reformat prior to intall, and you'll lose whatever you had.

The knoppix idea is good, but only if you're familiar and comfortable with Linux. If you are, or even comfortable with new things, go that route, it's a pretty slick recovery method that I had not thought of (thanks bal8664).

Other than that, shove another hard drive in there as Master and load an OS on that, then access the other drive ot get your data. I know you say you can't open your computer, but trust me, you can. There should be no way that hardware should be an obstacle. Find the screws, take them out, pry the cover open, whatever you have to do. Don't forget, some cases have locking mechanisms built in, so look for the easy way out before you start with the sledge hammer. In fact, don't use the sledge, bad idea.

Anyway, that's all I can add. Good luck.

Peace,

Pierre

ps. you did back up your data thought, right? Worse case scenario, you haven't lost very much right? Right! Everyone, backup your data!