[MGomez81]

So I go on vacation a few weeks ago, and I get back and turn on the computer. No problem. Starts as usual. So I'm surfing the net, and things go awry within a few minutes. My windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen dissapears. I'm exhausted anyways, so I shut down the system via the shut down button on the computer tower itself.

The next time I try to start it in the morning, I cannot get past the "select user" screen (Windows XP Pro). It starts to load my personal settings and then automatically reboots. It does this every time. So first I notice that my temps were pretty high, so I clean the inside of my case (pretty dusty). Then I reinstalled Windows XP Pro, without reformatting. So I basically have two different Windows XP's on the system as of right now. The new one allows me to get into windows just fine, but all my settings and whatnot are gone and when I attempt to load the earlier XP, I get the same rebooting problem after I enter my password at the select user screen. I can't even access the programs I had on my first Windows XP. I start college in a few weeks. I need to get back my computer as I had it. It also does not recognize any audio hardware now.

What the heck? I need your help if you know what I can do to resolve this.

Thank You.

[chevrofreak]

Sounds like you may have drug the task bar to its minimum size or something. You can usually still access the start menu via the windows key.

[Maxthemutt]

I have a friend that had the same problem, he reinstalled XP per the instructions and ended up with two versions, only one sort of working. I found this website to reformat and reinstall XP:

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-...stall-faq.html

As for saving your old info you could try going in safemode and save your old info, I had trouble with that.

Good luck, Max

[HerrGlock]

Fdisk, format, reinstall
windows, windows

(sung to camptown races)

Blow it all away, format the drive and all partitions.
Start over again. There are times when it's not worth trying to recover.

DanH

Originally posted by HerrGlock
Fdisk, format, reinstall
windows, windows

(sung to camptown races)

;z ;z ;z ;z ;z

[Bronson7]

Fdisk for XP? I'm a computer nube, but why would you do that unless it was an upgrade and you had to load win98 first? Now I'm really confused. I thought Fdisk was a DOS command.
Bronson7

[HerrGlock]

fdisk is a good way to scramble a disk so that the new install goes in clean.

Repartition it to some weird scheme, format those partitions, then fdisk it to your one/two/three partitions.

Plus, without it, the song wouldn't work ;f

DanH

[SamBuca]

I've always wiped the partition and formated to NTFS using the XP install CD....it gives you that option when you boot off the CD.

[srhoades]

I cringe everytime I hear "format and resintall" as the solution to any windows problem. Most problems can be fixed without a total reinstall. And, since Win2k, you can do a repair install which will wipe only the system folder and reinstall hardware.

Search google and the newsgroups, and there is almost always a solution other than format and reinstall.

[fastvfr]

Well, SRhoades may be from Kali, but that sounds like good advice to me.

Personally, when a client FUBARs their machine to this level, I will Search the HDD for their files and move them onto the active Windows.

Then I just delete the reference to the old XP install in the Boot.ini file and reboot.

Good as new.

Good luck,

FastVFR