computer abruptly turned itself off and won't boot back into WinXP

I'm posting for my stepmother, who lives 1000 miles away from me, and for whom English is a very tenuous second language. I've tried to get as much info as I can from her without sending her over the edge with my questioning, but please bear with me if I'm lacking some of the info that might be considered pertinent. If you tell me what else is needed, I'll do my best to try to extract the info from her.

Basic info: Sony VAIO desktop, purchased in April 2007 from a Sony sales room (thus likely a current model at the time, although my stepmother hasn't been able to locate the model number for me). Win XP Home, SP2. It has a CD/DVD drive, but no floppy drive. It also has some fancy TV hookup capability which we've never used. She has an all-in-one printer/copier/scanner hooked up to a USB port, and uses a DSL modem. Whatever the computer came with is what's still there (i.e., we haven't added additional drives or anything). She uses the computer primarily to play Japanese games (mostly installed from CDs she's purchased, although I believe she occasionally plays "Go" interactively with others online) and for email (Gmail account at which she receives infrequent mail, and no spam at all as of yet). Once in a while she'll browse the internet, but she won't go to a site unless McAfee Site Advisor rates it green (she's probably overly paranoid, but I don't discourage it).

We've set things up so that I can access her computer remotely (using LogMeIn), and I update her anti-spyware and run Spybot S&D scans for her just about every week (AVG antivirus takes care of itself). Never had any problem with that, and the program hasn't found any infections in months. I ran a Spybot scan on her computer today, and logged out of LogMeIn while it was running (which I always do). She saw the scan in progress, and decided to let it finish before sitting back down at the computer. She returned to the computer a while later and found it turned off. Tried to turn it back on, but it won't boot into Windows any more. The Sony splash screen comes up, followed by an IntelInside logo, and then a screen "full of words ", as she puts it.

The screen starts out as follows (she didn't specify which letters are in caps, so I'm using lower case for everything):
diskette drive b: none
parallel port (s): none
pri-master disk: 80026MB-udma5
dram type: ddr sdram
pri-slave disk: none
spd on module (s): yes
sec-slave disk: none
pci device listing----
bus no-device no- func no- bendor id device id device class irq
0 2 5 1037 5513 ide controller 14-15
0 2 6 1039 7013 simple comm- controller 4
[7 more lines similar to the last two, followed by the final line:]
display controller 10

I've had her try to unplug the computer from the wall and plug it back in, as well as unplugging her all-in-one and modem. Nada - same screen keeps coming back. Nothing happens when she hits 'enter'.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Motherboard problem? BIOS problem? Keep in mind we're talking a 76 year old woman who knows nothing about computers - she just wants the machine to turn on and off at her command. I don't have much faith that I'll be able to talk her through anything, but I'm wondering if I might at least be able to point her in a general direction - knowing full well that that direction might well end up being the Sony sales room where she bought the darn thing.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Hi rebecca,

Seems to be something wrong with BIOS. Could you get her to go into BIOS setup & reset everything to default ?

 

Thanks for the reply!

I'll try calling her this evening, and see if I can talk her through the BIOS setup.

It just occurred to me this morning that there was one day last week when her computer wouldn't fire up at all when she turned on the power. I suggested she unplug the unit and wait a couple of minutes, then try again, and that worked. I didn't think much of it at the time (other than breathing a huge sigh of relief!), but now I wonder if that might have been some kind of a sign of impending doom...

I'll post back after I speak with her.

 

rebecca,

Yes, it does sound like she is being thrown right into the setup screen which shouldn't happen but quite possibly is. Understanding that she is going to need simple instructions, the first thing I would suggest is having her hit F10 after all of the information (as reported) has come up on the screen. This will save her current settings and may (if we're lucky) go right into a boot up from the hard drive.

Also, please make sure she doesn't have a CD or DVD in the optical drive bay.

Should this approach fail to work, then you can have her go into the BIOS or setup menu and it can definitely be accessed by tapping on the Delete key or F2 (some sony's differ between these two options). She can alternate and tap on both intermittently for a failsafe entry. Then guide her to the boot order tab and have her select hard drive as the first boot device. (note: you may want to change this back later) she can move this device up or down in the boot order by using the + or - key. Again, have her hit F10 to exit while saving changes, wait briefly and then restart the machine using CTRL-ALT-DELETE.

Let us know how you make out.


edit: another quick thought that perhaps you want to try before any of the above. From a complete shutdown, try starting up while tapping the F8 key and have her select Last Known Good Configuration if she can get to a startup option screen. If no go, refer to the instructions above.

 

rebecca,

A shot in the dark after looking at your thread again - the HDD is listed as primary master. There is no drive listed as primary slave (nothing wrong with this, just means no slave on IDE #1). There is no listing at all for secondary master and no drive listed for secondary slave. If this information is accurate, it would indicate that the CD/DVD drive (which I'm guessing would be configured as secondary master) has either malfunctioned and is no longer being recognized or its 40 pin IDE connector may have come loose.

 

Thanks for the additional suggestions. I won't be able to check back with my stepmother until tomorrow evening, but I'll be sure to post back with results after that.

 

Hmmm... miracle of miracles, when my stepmother tried turning on the computer yesterday, for something like the 30th time this week, it started up normally!
I have no doubt there is still something wrong with it deep down, but being so far away, I'm tempted to just let sleeping dogs lie as long as I can here.
Still, I've noted your suggestions for future use, and (assuming if the computer remains functional), I'll see if I can find anything amiss the next time I'm down in NYC.
Thanks again!