pc crashed

[apt138]

HELP... my desktop has suddenly packed up, accidental loss of power to pc has caused a complete no-go....all i am getting on the screen is a load of black and white writing on a page.. says start windows normally and countdowns and then it just goes back to the same page...and does it all over again...tried in safe mode same problem...is there any way of getting it working again or do i have to use recovery disk and lose all i have on the pc......thank god for my laptop.....oh pc has XP...looking forward to getting advice...thanks...

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi Apt

 

Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help

 

Do you have the full XP installation disk at all or just a recovery disk?

 

If you only have the recovery disk have a read of part 2 here;

 

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/12418-post17.html

 

Have a read of this from Microsoft too.

 

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users

[Dalo Harkin]

Also pop the CMOS battery out for a few minutes - the round watch battery located at the bottom of the Motherboard, leave it out 2 minutes and then reinsert it and power up and see whats what

[apt138]

took the CMOS battery out, left it a few mins put back in and got message battery low and something about set up 1 and set up 2...beyond me...

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Well that's not a lot to go on Apt, what else did it say?

[apt138]

i hav 2 master cd's and a recovery disk

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Do you mean you have 2 copies of XP?

[apt138]

it says...

CMOS battery low

 

press f2 to run SETUP

press f1 to load default values and continue

[apt138]

no 2 master cd's i had to copy when pc first used

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok get a new CMOS battery from Tesco, they are a couple of quid.