[ashwin]

Hello

I've had a bad one.

I tried to clean off a friends computer, and have had a bad crash. I have done some maintenance, cleaned the Registry (Reg Supreme, regular clean only), ran the machine through the MS registry cleaner, and did chk dsk...

I know I rebooted after all that, because a reboot was neccessary to change the size of the font and icons. The last thing I did was to download a batch of MS updates...

That was a few days ago, and the computer had been unplugged. There was a spark when I plugged it in tonite, at the ac surge protector, and I don't know if that has anything to do with all this...

When I press the "on" button, Windows won't load. I can press F8 and get the options listed for safe mode, etc, but the dashes that stream across the bottom only go about a third the wasy across, and stop.

I tried a Barts bootable cd, and finally a Windows restore cd, but it is just a dark blank screen...

The cd turns, but that's all. It's a toshiba laptop with XP Home sp2.

Can anyone help me with suggestions???

Thanks

Ashwin

[ashwin]

I did find this but don't know what to do with it:

"The most common cause of this in a previously working machine is that the CMOS memory, which keeps your hardware and BIOS configuration settings, has lost its contents. That can happen due to anything from a power spike to errant software"

[martymas]

i have a feeling it was caused through the registry cleaning
unless you know what your doing in there regcleaning is a nono
unless you back it up first
some where on the board notes
an article by chappy on reg cleaning
saying
NEVER TOUCH THE REGISTRY UNLEES YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING
i used to use jv16
but like you i had the same problems
stuffed compt
you will probably have to reinstall windows
marty

[ashwin]

Thanks, but not sure how to reinstall if the recovery cd inserted just spins for a few minutes, without anything on the screen...

[shanenin]

Are you booting the computer with the recovery cd already in?

Is your computer set to boot from the cdrom before the hardrive?

[ashwin]

"Are you booting the computer with the recovery cd already in?"

I tried turning the computer on with the recovery cd in, and also after it was on.
Neither brought up a screen.

"Is your computer set to boot from the cdrom before the hardrive?"
This I don't know.


Thanks for taking time to answer.

I took it in to the tech, and there were just not enough files left to start Windows.

The computer came with a small surge protector in the ac cord, and the surge light was red.

I did several things at once, so it's hard to tell what happened...We had to reinstall Windows but saved documents to another drive first.

Thanks again