[amylenise]

Help! Windows won't boot up! This is the message I get:

We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows
Normally.

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked) Start Windows Normally

Use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to your choice.

Seconds until Windows starts: 30

When I pop my cd into the cd-rom drive, and let my computer boot from cd-rom, when I press "R," I don't get the prompt that let's me select which partion or OS install you want to work with, usually "1" or whatever is listed for C:\Windows. So what must I do? Just reinstall Windows and lose all my files??! Any advice is appreciated.

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hold y our horses.....did y ou try last known good config yet? that often fixes it

[dsenette]

hold y our horses.....did y ou try last known good config yet? that often fixes it

[matt_fleming]

Boot into safemode, shutdown, and then turn it back on again. See if that helps anything..

-Matt

[amylenise]

thanks for responding so promptly!

safe mode brings up gibberish and then goes to the same screen
last known config does the same thing without the gibberish!

(wail!)

[dsenette]

how attatched to those files are you?

[amylenise]

such an ominous reply!

extremely. i am the media person here and i have websites and everything, everything, everything...(sigh)

i am attached.

Edited by amylenise, 19 July 2005 - 03:30 PM.

[dsenette]

ok well....what speed is your internet connection?

[amylenise]

Cable modem...

[dsenette]

ok go to http://dsenette.geekstogo.com/tools/ and click on ubcd4win24.iso download it and burn it to a cd... you will need to burn it as a bootable iso...what cd burning tools do you have?

[dsenette]

what this is is a bootable version of xp....it will basically take you around the back end of your current windows install..... so basically what you will want to do is after burning the cd > put it in the drive and restart the pc > boot from the cd > once into the ubcd system you can explore your file system and find all of your nifty files.... you can take a few different steps from here.... you can either use the cd's utilities to burn these files onto cds, or you can attempt to use the system to email them to yourself...or if you have a second harddrive available you can move the files over to this drive.....this whole process will take a while...but should be do-able

Edited by dsenette, 16 August 2005 - 01:07 PM.

[dsenette]

i'll check back in tomorrow...

[amylenise]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I am (gratefully) away from this melee and out of the office today, so I will report back into the fray tomorrow.

The CD burning program I have is Roxio based, i think. When I had to upgrade to XP from Me, that's what I think i upgraded with. Honestly, i think it's another company whose name escapes me.

It does strike me as mighty odd that many of the people who are reporting that their Windows is crashing are HP Pavilion users like me! Something is afoot at HP!

Thanks again for all of your help and have a great day!

Edited by amylenise, 20 July 2005 - 09:46 AM.

[dsenette]

ok did you download that file? and i need specifics on your burning software. so i can make sure to give you the right instructins for burning the iso

[amylenise]

no because i am out of the office away from the computer. but i will report back tomorrow after i download....

thanks again!

[dsenette]

well....do you have a cd burner on the machine you are using right now? is what i meant