Won't finish booting

I am the unofficial keeper of the health of the computers in our office. We have a machine there that is having some serious problems. It is an Emachines 1.8GHz Intel Celeron with a 40 Gb hard drive and 512 Mb ram. It has on it Windows XP home edition.
Now for the problem: It boots up only part way. I believe a registry was deleted and this problem came immediately after. Someone was trying to take care of a virus that was on it and they said they followed the instructions from "a website" to remove this setting, but it was not printed and they cannot remember where the site was let alone what page it was on or what virus they were trying to get rid of.
When I try to boot it, it appears to be OK. It will boot to safe mode or regular equally. It stops at the screen that is light blue with darker blue across the top and bottom and the Windows XP logo to the right of center.
If I boot to a floppy, it comes onto the A: drive and will not recognise the c: drive. When it boots to the regular way, it still runs the printer through the network, which is it's only function right now. I don't know of any way to get to the c: drive to do anything. And I don't know what to do if I did get there. I can get to the bios setup screen, as this is before the point it stops, but I don't know of anything there that can help.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance,
Rick at Rafter Lazy C

 

After hitting F8 (or F5) during the BIOS boot have you tried "last known good configuration "?

 

OK, I tried that, and evidently windows thinks this is a good configuration, because it does the same thing as always.

Any other ideas?

 

Hello Rick,

You can try a repair for the OS:

Put your XP install cd-rom into the disc. If auto play enabled, the install process will begin, if not, double click on the drive.

What you should do is SKIP the first repair option (no "R" press) and just continue with your installation.
After you accept the license by pressing F8, setup searches for existing installations of Windows. By following the onscreen instructions and pressing "R" at this point, your current installation will be repaired. Make sure that its the 2nd "R" that you press, otherwise you may end up with two OSes.

You need the installation disc - and need to have the cd as the primary boot device.

Having used repair you will need to reinstall all the windows updates, and you may need to reinstall your video drivers but check if XP has over-written them with its own generic ones. Everything else and all preferences should be ok.

Regards - Charles

 

Don't have any Windows XP Disk, only a "recover disk" Don't know why these people can't give you the disks when you buy something. Need to ask the boss to find the recover disk. He has it at home somewhere. Don't believe that gives any restore options, only rewrite the disk and start over.

Thanks,
Rick at Rafter Lazy C

 

Hi Rick,

Don't believe that gives any restore options, only rewrite the disk and start over.

If that disc is the "factory settings ", not the OS by itself, then that's what you're going to have to do. When you get it, "explore" it on another system to see what's there.

One thing I forgot to ask: in safe mode, do you have an option to access System Restore? This is not the same as the "last working config ".

The Safe Mode dialog on my system gives me a choice of continuing with Safe Mode or accessing SR. Even W/O that dialog, see if you can bring it up. You might have a chance of restoring to a point prior to the problem.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that, BUT it doesn't have it anywhere on the list. I can't seem to get there no matter what I try.

Rick at Rafter Lazy C

 

Hi Rick,

Lets make sure here. When you're in safe mode: > all programs > accessories > system tools. System Restore is not there along with defrag and chkdisk?

I just went thru this and it's there.

Regards - Charles

 

Even when it boots to safe mode, it does not finish booting. Same as if I booted regular. Not finished, no menu's.

Good try, though,
Rick