Problems with my computer- Need help

Emo_Hanz · #1 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 03:18 PM

Hi, for a while now I have had a few problems with my computer, and being in my final year of school I need my computer to be working okay cause I need it to do course work on. So I would be very grateful for your help.

Problem 1:
Firstly, it takes a very long time to start up, the longest it has taken is about 6 hours to start up. (which when waiting to do course work is not very helpful for me). I'll turn it on and it'll load up and then it'll get to the windows xp loading page and then it will shut off, it'll start again and then shut off again, it then starts up again by this time it comes up with a black screen with white writing on saying something like it didn't start up properally, this could be due to power failiure, or a recent installation. (I haven't installed anything new on it in about a year now). It does say more by I can't remember what else it says, at the bottom it says some stuff about safe mode but I'm not sure what the safe mode is so I never go on that, then it says last known configuration (last settings that worked) or start windows normally. It will come up with this many times. Any one got any ideas on how to stop this from happening?

Problem 2:
Once it has finally started up and I'm finally managing to get some course work done or looking at sites, it will suddenly without warning shut off and restart, but it will go all the way through what I mentioned in problem 1. Only when this happens it doesn't take as long as it does in problem 1, the max about of time I've had to wait for it to start working when this happens is about an hour. But when I go back to Microsoft word, all my work has been lost. It also won't stay on if I'm trying to move photos or my music to a cd or memory stick just to make sure I don't loss any of them.

I will edit this if anything changes, I really need someones help, please help.

Hannah

Dan Penny · #2 (**permalink**) 11-10-2008, 05:52 PM

Run a file check on the O/S.

If you have an XP CD:
Click START, RUN, type in:

sfc /purgecache

(This ensures that system files are copied from your Windows installation media, and files which may be infected with malware, or are corrupted, are not copied from your drive. Some of the files which are restored/replaced may need MS Updates applied. If sfc replaces any such files, you will have to reinstall updates for those files. If you have Automatic Updates active, this will happen automatically.)

Then type in:

sfc /scannow

Have your XP CD handy.

If you don't have an XP CD:
Click START, RUN, type in:

sfc /scannow

Please post back with your results and any further questions so others reading this will know where the situation lies.