[drgwspup]

yes, I can get to the bios screen

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Load BIOS defaults, press F10 to save, type Y and press enter

[Retired Tech]

Load BIOS defaults, press F10 to save, type Y and press enter

[drgwspup]

I'll try to get a disc from someone at the office tomorrow

[drgwspup]

ok Keith

trying what you suggested

[drgwspup]

keith.

set the default, hit f10, hit "enter" in response to question do you want to exit, not sure when to hit y and enter.

tried it two different ways

got the Coompaq splash screen for a couple seconds, then what loks like a DOS flashing curor for maybe 3 seconds, then it cycled back to the intial screen I get "We apologize for the inconvenience..."

[-OCM770-]

I guess that rules out RAM issues... can you still get to the COMPAQ recovery tools?


-OCM770-

[drgwspup]

yes, but the Compaq recovery will wipe my files. really want to avoid that.

[-OCM770-]

Man, a recovery CD would really help us now, see if you can get an OEM XP Home CD from someone.


-OCM770-

[drgwspup]

ok,let me see what i can get tomorrow at the office. Thanks for all your help tonighht. I really appreciate your time.

Mark

[Retired Tech]

Did it have save and exit, or just exit

[drgwspup]

got into the bios
went to exit option
found the load default option there, selected that one
got a question: load setup default?
selected yes
then selected: exit and save
got query: Save config changes and exit?
yes

then it rebooted, got the compaq splash screen then followed by what loooked like maybe the DOS prompt for a couple seconds
then back to square one.

[Retired Tech]

Fine

See how you get on with getting a CD

[wannabe1]

This really sounds like a corrupt boot sector. If you can get your hands on a cd, we can use Recovery Console to rebuild it. A retail version of XP (of the same version that's installed on your machine) would be ideal, but most OEM installation cd's will have it, as well. We just need a command prompt...

[-OCM770-]

If you can get a CD go to the recovery console and type fixboot then type fixmbr then type chkdsk /r


post back


-OCM770-

[drgwspup]

hi folks,

None of my friends had XP home, all have XP pro.

So I ordered OEM receovery discs from HP. Arrived today.

Just tried loading them, I get the R, F or Q option.

Entered R, took me to the Compaq recovery console,

asked if I wanted to try the windows recovery first, said yes, took me ot Compag recovery which tells me that I'll lose all data files which i really want to avoid.

How do I get to the command prompt to do the other things you suggested

Thanks,
Mark.