[ctspice]

I finally broke down and got a cable modem installed yesterday. My desktop worked fine. I installed a wireless router and it still worked fine. I got my laptop to recognize the router and it worked fine. I set up a home network on my desktop and it prompted me to restart the computer which I said OK. And then concentrated on seeing about setting up the network on my laptop. When I checked my desktop, I realized that when the computer restarted nothing happened. I turn it on, the name "Compaq" comes up on the screen with a little white flashing box in the top right corner, the screen goes blue and nothing else happens. Obviously the operating system is not loading and I don't know why. I can get in the set up and see my drives and components of the computer and that's all. There was no indication of what went wrong and I don't know how to fix it. I have an operating system CD from my new laptop that I can use to reinstall the system, but it says that it will wipe out everything on the hard drive which I don't want to do. Any idea what went wrong and how I can fix it especially without losing all my programs and data? I was so excited about finally having an up to date system and now I'm really bummed out!! Thank you.

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Hi ctspice...

Boot to the Safe Mode options (tap F8 during bootup) and choose the option to start using the "Last known good configuration" option. Does this allow the machine to start normally?

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hi ctspice...

Boot to the Safe Mode options (tap F8 during bootup) and choose the option to start using the "Last known good configuration" option. Does this allow the machine to start normally?

wannabe1

[ctspice]

Hi wannabe,

Pressing F8 does nothing for me. Pressing F6 brings up something called Legal Opcode with a bunch of numbers and letters. F10 brings up the setup utility which allows me to see my system information. The rest, all I get is the word "Compaq", one little sound like it's starting up and then a blank dark blue screen. If I exit out of the setup utility, I go to the dark blue screen and then nothing further happens. I'm not getting any error messages or anything.

ctspice

[wannabe1]

What's the make and model of the machine in question?

[ctspice]

Compaq Presario 5000. Originally had Windows ME on it, later upgraded to Win XP. I was able to get to a C prompt with the recovery CD, but it wasn't my hard drive. It had very few files on it. I am at the set up utility screen which allows me to see my drives and I am running a IDE DPS Self-test on the hard drive to see if that tells me anything.

[wannabe1]

When you boot to the Recovery cd, are you able to start Recovery Console by pressing the R key on the first "Welcome to Setup" screen?

[ctspice]

When I boot to the Recovery CD, it shows some information including "starting Windows 98" and then goes to a red screen that flashes " Please contact Compaq Technical Support" and then does nothing else.

[wannabe1]

Can you get back to the C:\ prompt?

[ctspice]

On one of my attempts I got to a C:prompt, but when I looked at the directory of the files on the drive, there was no windows directory (in fact no directories at all) and the size of the drive was not the size that's in there.

[wannabe1]

Is there a floppy drive on the machine? Some 5000's had them...some didn't.

[ctspice]

Yes, there is

[wannabe1]

I'm hoping the machine you are on now also has a floppy drive????

Download this Boot Disk Set and save it to the desktop. Select the download for the XP operating system you have installed.

To create the Boot Disk Set (this will require 6 formatted floppy diskettes), double click on the downloaded file and, when prompted to do so, put a floppy disk in the drive. It will prompt you to insert each floppy and to label them.

Once you have these disks ready, let me know and we'll see if we can't get you up and running again.

[ctspice]

I'm on a laptop that does not have a floppy drive.

[wannabe1]

Neighbor? Friend?

The Boot Disk Set will contain Recovery Console. This would give us some options to try from a command prompt...as well as the ability to boot the machine to a clean environment.

[ctspice]

Nobody near by today. I thank you very much for all of your help. I think I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow at work. I believe my computer at work has a floppy drive.