Dell with XP won't boot (BSOD)

I have an interesting situation here.

My supervisor at work has a Dell at home running XP. It won't boot, period. He gets a blue screen even when trying to get to safe mode.

He said the last time this happened he called support and the person there had him hit a series of keys at startup which eventually got him to checkdisk (he said checkdisk fix boot). He can't remember all the commands or keyboard keys he had to hit to get there. He talked to support yesterday and the three people he talked to didn't know anything about those series of commands.

I told him try to boot to the CD so he could repair his installation if he can't remember those commands and then he can get to checkdisk.

Anyone know a good way to get to checkdisk without repairing the installation?

I can't get to the computer to get my hands on it for whatever reason (he just won't invite me to his house) and I think it's still under warranty and he may not want the possible complications of a third party working on the computer.

He asked me for help because he has a difficult time understanding the support personnel.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Mitch

 

Mitch,

I'm not sure that he can fix this without putting in the Dell XP disk. Here are the instructions that I have that might work.

Boot using your Windows XP CD , then when the setup starts , choose "R" repair , it will enter you to the recovery console , at the recovery console you will be promoted to choose the correct OS installed , by default if you have only Windows XP it should be #1. enter the administrator password and use the following command to fix your boot

FIXBOOT
CHKDSK /P

Then after your done , type EXIT and hit enter , your system will reboot , remove the XP cd , and the system should boot normal to windows.

I know that you were looking for the commands, but hopefully this will help. I wish I knew what the commands were that he used before.

Mike

 

Mike,

Anything helps. Thanks for the reply. I will give him these instructions when i see him Thursday night at work.

Mitch

 

It may also be worthwile asking for the BSOD error.

To a beginner a BSOD is a BSOD and what he thinks is the same problem may be entirely unrelated.

 

Just an update.

First I want to thank you for the replies. I passed on the information but he would rather pay a local company to check it out than to let me help. His perogative.

Mitch

 

Yep, I think so. I just can't wait until he tells me what they found.

 

Hopefully, he'll let you know what they find and then you can pass it on. I wonder how long he will be without his computer now.