windows XP doesn't startup

[kubani1]

i'm reposting this from the software for windows forum.

my mothers computer has got problems, I'm hoping to get her another one in the next year, but i can't afford right at this moment so I'm hoping to get this working again for a bit.

When we start up the computer we go to a screen that tells us windows did not start correctly and we can choose continue to start normally, safe mode (with networking or with command prompt, and last known configuration.

When i try to startup, it goes to the windows icon, then shuts down and restarts the whole process again.

my mother does not have the reinstall disks anymore and I don't know what to do.

 

[kubani1]

okay, i got this message UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

is there anything i can do

also it says technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0X823841A8, Oxc0000006, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

 

[owensdj]

Run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic software from a boot CD.

 

[kubani1]

i'm hoping to find the boot CD, i love my mother, but she doesn't keep track of this stuff and I live out of the country so i'm trying to fix it all before i leave, which is next week.

so i have been digging through my mothers pile of stuff, but haven't found it yet, although the product key is written on the bottom of the machine, so i could try to score a boot disk from someone else.

 

[exdeath]

Pull the drive, hook it up to a external IDE/SATA to USB cable to a working machine and see if you can browse the drive and run chkdsk /f on it. Typically you won't be able to explore the drive at all, and possibly you'll be prompted to format it it. Do not format. Run chkdsk /f letter: from command line and as soon as it finishes, I bet you'll get an autoplay dialog popping up and enumerating the contents of the drive. Then simply return it to the afflicted system.

Check in the event log of the host machine for disk errors, and use a tool such as Disk Checkup to view the SMART data, particularly remapped sector count, and judge the current state of the drive. If after running chkdsk /f you fail to get disk errors in the Windows event log or have a remapped sector count of zero, it's likely the drive is ok but just had corrupt (now corrected) file system structures. You can also access the drive's own system event log in letter: \windows\system32\config and check for any causes.

Alternately if you have a boot disk or bootable usb with chkdsk, you can just run chkdsk /f from there.

 

[kubani1]

Pull the drive, hook it up to a external IDE/SATA to USB cable to a working machine and see if you can browse the drive and run chkdsk /f on it. Typically you won't be able to explore the drive at all, and possibly you'll be prompted to format it it. Do not format. Run chkdsk /f letter: from command line and as soon as it finishes, I bet you'll get an autoplay dialog popping up and enumerating the contents of the drive. Then simply return it to the afflicted system.

Check in the event log of the host machine for disk errors, and use a tool such as Disk Checkup to view the SMART data, particularly remapped sector count, and judge the current state of the drive. If after running chkdsk /f you fail to get disk errors in the Windows event log or have a remapped sector count of zero, it's likely the drive is ok but just had corrupt (now corrected) file system structures. You can also access the drive's own system event log in letter: \windows\system32\config and check for any causes.

Alternately if you have a boot disk or bootable usb with chkdsk, you can just run chkdsk /f from there.

Thanks, i had no luck getting anywhere with the damn thing, i've sent it to my brother, he has the proper equipment to pull any data, all my stuff is in another country.

another question though, we got a new computer for my mother, windows 7, but we cannot access some sites. example, on facebook she can play some games, like word twist, but not others, like lexulous. more concerning is that my mother cannot access her credit card sites (she has her own business and she needs access) or her WDOR tax account. she can get to the login screen but than nothing.

any ideas what is causing this. i'm not too familiar with windows 7, i have been using a Mac for the last few years, i know XP fairly well because i used to use that a lot, but i just don't get why some things work and others don't.

 

[VirtualLarry]

another question though, we got a new computer for my mother, windows 7, but we cannot access some sites. example, on facebook she can play some games, like word twist, but not others, like lexulous.

Do you have the newest version of BOTH Adobe Flash (www.adobe.com) and Java (www.java.com) installed?

more concerning is that my mother cannot access her credit card sites (she has her own business and she needs access) or her WDOR tax account. she can get to the login screen but than nothing.

Could it be that the site in question is incompatible with Internet Explorer version 8 or 9? Version 8 comes with Windows 7.

Have you tried installing Firefox 4.0 or 5.0, and tried accessing those sites?

 

[kubani1]

i have tried with Opera and google chrome in addition to internet explorer. odd thing, when i test if adobe shockwave player is up to date, it says it isn't on chrome, but it is on opera, however the computer gets stuck when i start trying to download it on chrome, or not stuck, but it won't start the download.

alternatively, when i test opera it says flash is out of date, but when i try to download the latest version of flash, it also doesn't start downloading.

i don't know what to do.

 

[kubani1]

take that back, it finally started downloading

 

[kubani1]

but it still doesn't work