Comptuer Guys - $30 paypal - PLEASE HELP
 

Okay, please read my entire post. Feel free to post however many ideas you want, i'm willing to try anything. In each post you make, include paypal or epassport email address, and specify which one it is. Whoever fixes my problem i'll send $30 - maybe more if i get really excited.

Now for the problem:

Whenever I turn my computer on, i just get a solid black screen right before the Windows XP(pro) log-in screen. It's all black, but I have a cursor. I get the same exact thing when I boot into safe mode.

Also, i'm almost positive it's not a hardware problem because I brought my hard drive over to my girlfriend's, put it in her computer as the master, and it does the same thing.

Please Help

when in doubt, reformat

you may need to format the hard drive and re-install windows, if the HDs still good

nononono can't do that.. i forgot to mention.. i don't want to reformat, i'd lose my life.

can you boot to cd? and run a repair?

Most likely a virus.


Run norton antivirus in dos.

when the computer is booting up press F8 I believe it is... to go to dos prompt and run norton dos version from there.

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;314503

Straight from the horse's mouth. Epassporte id is dagwolf :)

It can also be messed up windows dll or registery.


After runing the anti virus reinstall windows.

Bring it back to the girlfriends or to another pc switch the jumpers and set it up as a secondary drive. See if you can then at least look at the data on it. If you can then start scanning it with various anti virus tools and the like or copy off all the files you really want and proceed with a format.

Well, you could try to boot your computer from a Linux Live CD and then transfer your important files to a FTP server and then reformat the damn thing. :)

It was this easy, forget the money...

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...een+windows+xp

Have you try to use the repair-feature from the windows XP install disc?

:thumbsup .....

Like was mentioned use the repair fuction of Windows install cd.

I would advice doing the following first:
- if possible put the pc in another computer and run a full spyware/trojans scan on the pc
- try other gfx card if possible (from other brand i.e if you have a ATI Radeon put a Nvidia Geforce ;)

***DO NOT REFORMAT***

First of all, mount the drive as a slave on the gf's pc and see if it can be mounted and read from

if that doesn't work, call a HD data recovery firm
I fully recommend
www.drivesavers.com
who recovered data from my drive from a laptop that took a dive from a boat into the ocean, bu t I've also heard praises from
www.iomegadatarecovery.com

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOTHING UNTIL YOU'VE SPOKEN WITH AN EXPERT IN THE FIELD and by that I mean, anyone who posts in this thread ;)

I had a similiar problem a long time ago. It turned out to be a virus. What I did was take the hard drive out, take it to a friends pc and plug it in and go over it with spyware/virus checkers, try working on it from there, and if worse comes to worse, just ghost that whole drive onto a new one and your problems are solved.

remove the HD
install it as a secondary drive like Lord of the fungi said.
If you can view the date, then trying copying folder by folder.

nothing has worked..

microsoft links, google links, virus scanning, spyware scanning, nothing

Have you tried making it a secondary drive yet?

brizzad - what brand is the hdd?

Try rebooting with all USB and Firewire devices disconnected.

-Tony

take the hd to your GF's computer and put it as slave to your GF's hd......if it still goes blackscreen its a short circuit or something in the hd, take it to a repair shop......If your GF's hd starts up windows as usual try accessing your drive and run a full system scan on it with the latest virus scanner......if that doesnt work copy your stuff to your GF's hd or burn it on cd's and than format it.....

epassporte: danne :winkwink:

brad seriously
just reformat
dont have to lose your data
just format the drive

I know the problem...and the fix.

Problem is you won't like it.