[walkinn]

Immediate description: our computer crashed. When the computer is turned on, all the icons on the desktop are small, white window icons. Double cliking on the icons does nothing. So, I have tried to open a program by clicking "Start" then selecting the desired program. Again nothing happens. I cannot access the Control Panel or My Computer.

Someone suggested that we would need to start all over with the computer and reinstall all the programs. That's fine. But when I inserted Windows XP cd into the drive nothing happens. The cd player whirrs for a few minutes, then shuts off with no recognition of the what is in the cd. I tried rebooting, at least I think that's how to do it, by leaving the operating cd in the drive, turning off the computer, then turning it on again; however, the option to run computer from the cd never comes up.

The irony of all this is that this happened when I was downloading the new Norton Antivirus. In the middle of the download, a contact help desk popped up, but the link would not work. Before this we have had adware/spyware called Aurora that was always impeding our computer. Whether this was the cause or not I do not know.

So, how do I start over?

[Advertisements]

Hi walkinn! Welcome to G2G!

What you need to do is go into your computer's BIOS and change the BOOT ORDER to boot from the CD-ROM before your harddrive. The usual way to get into the bios is to hit the F1, F2 or DEL key as soon as you turn on your computer and continue hitting it about once a second until you get to the bios screen. It should also say what key to push to enter SETUP (another name for BIOS) when your computer is booting up.

After you do this then put your XP cd in. I would recommend that you try to do a REPAIR INSTALLATION (using the link in my signature as a guide on how to do it) before doing a complete format and install. All your programs will still work and you won't lose any settings or files doing this. All this does is repair the operating system's files (C:\WINDOWS).

Good luck!

Fenor

[Fenor]

Hi walkinn! Welcome to G2G!

What you need to do is go into your computer's BIOS and change the BOOT ORDER to boot from the CD-ROM before your harddrive. The usual way to get into the bios is to hit the F1, F2 or DEL key as soon as you turn on your computer and continue hitting it about once a second until you get to the bios screen. It should also say what key to push to enter SETUP (another name for BIOS) when your computer is booting up.

After you do this then put your XP cd in. I would recommend that you try to do a REPAIR INSTALLATION (using the link in my signature as a guide on how to do it) before doing a complete format and install. All your programs will still work and you won't lose any settings or files doing this. All this does is repair the operating system's files (C:\WINDOWS).

Good luck!

Fenor