[wannabe1]

Yes.

If you get to the point where it asks you to select your operating system, you'll type 1 and press "Enter". You'll then be prompted for the Administrator Password...leave it blank and just press "Enter". If you get past that, you should be presented with a command prompt (C:\Windows>).

Let me know how you do with this. If you get that far, we've got a good chance of reaching an older registry.

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The screen says problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

[country girl]

The screen says problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

[wannabe1]

Did it make an attempt to boot to the CD? If so, how far did it get before you received the error?

[country girl]

It says to follow steps : Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is identified in the stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.
Chek with your hardware vendor for any bios updates, disable bios memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use dafe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press f8 to deledt advanced start up options and then select safe mode.
tech info is stop:0x0000007E(0xC0000005,0xF853E0BF,0xF898A208,0xF8989F08)
pci.sys-address F853E0BF base at F8537000,Date Stamp 3b7d855c I don't know what this is.

[country girl]

yes it tried to boot

[wannabe1]

I'm pretty sure it was a botched update that's caused this, but the error could also point to a problem with the hard drive.

Let's run a Repair installation using the Dell disk. Doing this will appear like it's doing a fresh install and you will be warned that you may lose the files in your Documents folder. I've never seen it cause damage to the files, however. This looks more complicated than it is and will take about an hour in most cases. Just follow the instructions in the Guide I link you to carefully and you'll do fine. If you are asked for a product key during the install, it should be located on a sticker on the lower left corner of the left side panel of a Dell desktop or the bottom of a laptop. It's a 25 character alpha-numeric code xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx. Dells do sometimes ask for this code, but not always.

This will effectively remove all the Windows Updates and replace the system core files. Your data should be just fine.

Windows XP Repair Installation

I'll stay online until we see how you fare with this.

[country girl]

Ok I'll try it but if u have something else going we can continue tomorrow or when your free. I really appreciate this thanks. It's up to you>

[wannabe1]

If you've got the time...so do I. I'll just hang out and see how it goes...

[country girl]

I'm on the screen that says windows xp professional setup at bottom it says searching for previous versions of microsoft windows and nothing else. Is this what takes up to an hour because I don't hear anything from my computer. I followed all steps so far. If its to corrupt and I choose to install windows on the next step will I loose my pictures or just some files?

[wannabe1]

Is this the screen you are on?

[country girl]

It's the screen but it doesn't have anything on it except what I told you and nothing is happening.

[country girl]

The screen is frozen. Should I shut it down again and try it over again?

Edited by country girl, 29 April 2009 - 10:20 PM.

[wannabe1]

This is not a good sign so far as getting the machine running. It's acting like a bad hard drive.

We still have options, but they will require a small purchase and the removal of the hard drive from your machine. Are you up to that or would you be more comfortable letting someone in your area do it for you.

What it entails is the purchase of an external enclosure for the hard drive and placing your hard drive in it. This would allow you access to the drive through a USB port much like a flash drive. I think it would be best to do nothing more to it until we can get your data off safely.

There is also an option for using a Linux version that runs in the memory to copy your data to a flash drive, but there is a learning curve to this option.

In any case, let's not do anything that might write data to the drive until we have your photos recovered.

[country girl]

Ok I'll try and find one and get back to you. I don't know anyone here to help and the ones I've contacted are charging $300 just to look into the problem> I heard about the Linux I can try that too but it looks complicated. Thank you for your help and I'll be in touch. Feel free to email me if you want to check my progress. Thank and goodnite you are a wonderful person.

[wannabe1]

If you have a Staples or Office Depot in your area, either should have an external enclosure that would work. They are quite inexpensive and easy to use. They will need to know the make and model of your machine to help you pick the right one for your HDD.

I'll be happy to help you with the recovery if you wish.

Thank you for the kind words...