[minnelinda]

A friend left her laptop with me when she went out-of-town. The machine was running very slowly. Her Norton antivirus didn't findany viruses, but Spybot and Adware found lots of junk, which I removed. I also ran disk clean-up, checkdisk and defrag. She also hasn't updated in a long time, so I helpfully (!) ran Windows Update. A

As the machine was downloading/installing a long list, the screen went dark and hung there. Eventually I powered down. When I brought it back up, XP won't boot.

The computer is an IBM ThinkPad, type 2656, model R31, running Windows XP Pro.

After the initial 'IBM ThinkPad' screen I get the dos screen: 'We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start properly...." and a choice of 5 possible ways to reload.
With 'Normal' and 'Last known good configuration' the machine goes to a Windows XP Pro start-up screen, then through 3 black dos screens describing the system, and (I think) what it's trying to boot to. Then there is one loud beep and those screens begin cycling through again. Endlessly.

Choosing any of the 'safe' mode options, I may/may not get dos script lines filling the page. They all begin with 'multi(0) disk(0) rdisk(0) partition (0). Then nothing happens after that.

Yikes. I don't want to lose her data (if it's still there). She probably doesn't even have system disks (she bought this machine used off Craig's List.)

Ideas, other than taking this humbly to a tech?

[Advertisements]

Items in blue which are underlined are clickable to give more information about the process

Start the System Restore Utility at a command prompt

1. Restart your computer, and keep tapping F8 during the initial start-up until you get options, select Safe Mode with a Command Prompt then press enter.

2. Log on to your computer with an administrator account or with an account that has administrator credentials.

3. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to an earlier state.

Look for the most recent system checkpoint created before the errors to restore from

For additional information about the Safe mode with a command prompt, click 315222 to see a description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP

If it won't play, you can borrow an XP Pro CD and use the laptop product key to run a repair install, post back if you need to do that

[Retired Tech]

Items in blue which are underlined are clickable to give more information about the process

Start the System Restore Utility at a command prompt

1. Restart your computer, and keep tapping F8 during the initial start-up until you get options, select Safe Mode with a Command Prompt then press enter.

2. Log on to your computer with an administrator account or with an account that has administrator credentials.

3. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to an earlier state.

Look for the most recent system checkpoint created before the errors to restore from

For additional information about the Safe mode with a command prompt, click 315222 to see a description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP

If it won't play, you can borrow an XP Pro CD and use the laptop product key to run a repair install, post back if you need to do that

[minnelinda]

Thank you so much, Keith. I've been feeling sick about this and overwhelmed. Had been struggling to figure it out all afternoon.

So I posted, then quit and went to see "An Inconvenient Truth", to remind myself that there may be some problems bigger than screwing up a friends' computer.

I will try this fix in the morning (I'm on PDT)when I'm alert and optimistic and will post back if it doesn't work and I need to do a repair install.

I SO much appreciate "GTG". Thanks for your prompt response.

Edited by minnelinda, 22 July 2006 - 11:17 PM.

[Retired Tech]

Hope it goes well