Computer trouble.

[Al_Ninio]

Righto.
My PC overheated and got fried a while ago, so I went and bought myself a brand new PC, salvaging some parts from the old PC (HDD, CD burner) to make stuff a little cheaper.

Enter trouble.

I've installed Windows XP, everything worked fine for a couple of days, and then BLAM.
I reboot, and Windows won't load.
It just gets to where the XP load screen is supposed to be, but all I get is a black screen.
Reinstalling Windows helps, but only until I reboot, and Windows won't load again.

Is my hard-drive broken? Should I get a new one or does anyone know of a way to fix this?
I lack the money to buy a new one, and installing Windows 3-5 times a day is starting to get a little annoying.

Help?

[HillBilly]

Have to talked to the people you bought the computer from? Or the OS?

[Al_Ninio]

Nope, not yet.
I would like to try and fix it myself before doing so, just to be sure I've done all I could do by myself.

[Rincewind]

Hm, yeah, the same thing(or at least something very similar) happened to me just a while ago. I turned on the computer, and it wouldn't load, it just gave me a black screen saying that a file was missing/corrupt.
I reinstalled windows, and it went fine, for a while, and then it did the same thing again after about a week. After about threee more times, I borrowed a copy of the windows XP cd from an uncle of mine, since I realized that the installation cd that we had was damaged/scratched, which made the installation incomplete, and that was why the thing would act as it did.
So if installing it again doesn't work, I'm not really sure what you should do.
Try doing what hillBilly said, though. Always worth a try.

[Barbarian]

It could be any number of things that is the cause of the problem.
But, it's possible that it's a conflict of drivers, or a setting changed (such as incompatible graphic settings or drivers, etc..), or maybe you tried to install some Windows updates or something else which caused conflicts?

Anyways, here's somthing to try:

Boot up your computer, but just Before it starts to load in Windows, tap the F8 key, which hopfully should bring up a boot up menu.

If so, then select Safe Mode.
Once safe mode loads in, then you can choose to do a System Restore.
Pick restore checkpoint from a date to Before the problems started to occur (a date you know when your computer was still working good).

The System Restore can take a few minutes (depending on your system), and if successful, once the system-restore reboots your computer automatically, hopfully it Windows will load in normally for you without problems.

Ã,  If that does not fix it, then do you have the original Window's Installation CD?
If so, you could load that into the CD drive, and attempt to repair problems from there, or perhaps to do a Repair Install.
For more details on this and some other useful suggestions, check out this link:
http://www.help2go.com/article209.html

[Al_Ninio]

Barbarian:
I've tried running Windows without updates, didn't help, did a clean install, updated, didn't help.

I'll try getting an installation CD from someone, maybe mine's damaged.

[Darth Mandarb]

I'm certainly no expert on the inner workings of computers, but I had a similar problem before.

The boot volume on my hard drive had lost a sector (fried) and it wouldn't load into windows.  The drive was okay other than that and it would let me re-install windows as many times as I wanted (after I hooked the drive to another computer and backed up all my files!)  But it still wouldn't load in.

The solution was a new hard drive.  It worked like a charm after that.

I have no clue if that's what's wrong with your computer ... just thought I'd offer the suggestion!  Good luck!

[Evil]

What you might do is but a cheap hard drive and load windows to that. Run two hard-drives until you can afford a new one. :/

[Al_Ninio]

...I had a 7gb hard drive in my old PC...
But now I noticed that I threw it away with the old case.

I feel silly.

Anyways, it appears I will have to keep reinstalling until I can gather enough money to buy a new HDD.

Or until I can convince my father to buy me one.

The first option seems more realistic, somehow.

[Evil]

Why couldn't you just buy a cheap 2gb for windows only? It'd only ring up like 10 bucks MAX.

[Al_Ninio]

Well, mainly because no computer store here has HDDs under 40gb.

[Ghormak]

Try booting the computer with the Windows CD and run FIXMBR (I think it was). I had a similar problem once after a defragging mishap where windows refused to load, even in safe mode. So I just booted from the CD, ran that command, and it jibbled a little with the MBR which apparently had gotten broken somehow and voilá. Perfectly working computer again.

I have no idea what's wrong with your computer, but at least this is less of a hassle than reinstalling windows for now...

[Al_Ninio]

Faulty master boot record.
Who would've thought?

Everything appears to be working fine now.
Thanks, Ghormak!

[Ghormak]

Awesome!

* Ghormak gains +200 experience

[Barbarian]

Good to know you got things working again Highwaygal, sometimes it's hard to narrow down computer problems.  Oh yeah, now would be a good time to back-up any of your important files for safekeeping just in case your HD decides to act strangely again.

*Thumbs Up for Ghormak* Good man 

[Al_Ninio]

Welp.
Apparently that was just a temporary fix, as my hard drive is indeed dying.

I shall buy a new one soon.

You may keep your awesome.

[Babar]

It's kinda sad. I had exactly the same problam as Highwaygal, but I had to get a new HD, as it seemed the only solution. Lost a lot of stuff. I wish you had had your problem before .

[Darth Mandarb]

Faulty master boot record.
Who would've thought?

The boot volume on my hard drive had lost a sector (fried) and it wouldn't load into windows.

Apparently I would have

I was advised, after learning the boot record was fried, that it was only a matter of time before the drive fried completely and that it wasn't a good idea to keep the drive as Backup.Ã,  I kept the drive anyway and it lasted me for over a year before blowing up.Ã,  But once it starts ... it's all over.

Is eBay an option for you?Ã,  I found these:

Seagate 10gb IDE HardDrive - $0.99 (0 bids - at time of this post)

Western Digital 10gb IDE HardDrive - $10

Western Digital 8.4GB IDE Hard Drive - $9

And that's just a few ... there were hundreds of them listed.

[c.leksutin]

some advice: dont put windows on a smaller, older, SLOWER HDD, I've tried this and your system performance falls through the floor.  when you can, upgrade your self to a nice, new 120gb HDD and dont worry about it for a while to come.  Later, buy your self an older, slower drive and make back-ups of all you work files: images you made,  music your working on (like sequencer files) games you're making work files.  dont wory about backing up your programs so much as you can always just re-install those along with your OS.  Also copy the installer files to the *free* programs you're downloading off the net, like Firefox and adobe acrobat and the odd driver files you have to update.  that will save you from having to re-download if the worst should happen.

With this system, if you loose your HDD again, all you'll have to do is re-install you OS, and your software from CD, then just copy over your work files, installers for you non-cd based software and any divers you need and your back in business in a few short hours after the drive is connected and powered up.

C.

[RickJ]

Take a look at fairauction.com.  I've bought stuff from them before and was satisfied.   Currently they have a 160 GB drive for $66 + shipping.

http://www.fairauction.com/items/278295.htm