I'm completely unable to boot up into Windows XP Home

coreman · #1 01-10-2005, 05:54 PM

Here's my problem:

I turn on the power button and then as usual get the Dell screen with the little load bar on it. After sitting there for about 30 seconds (seems like it stalls out), I then get the following screen:

strike F1 to retry reboot, F2 for setup utility

Hitting F1 does nothing but beep and then repeats the above message. Hitting F2 acceses setup just fine but I don't know what I need to do in there. When I hit F2 for the setup utility, I do see that next to my primary drive 0, secondary drive 0 and secondary drive 1 it displays "unknown device." Next to my primary drive 1 it says "off." It's as if I don't even have a hard drive connected.

Some other information is that I have a Dell 8200 series computer with Windows XP Home Edition installed. Some software that I have on it are Window Washer, Zone Alarm and McAfee virus protection. I have DSL.

As for getting the problem, it was completely unexpected. I had my computer on last Friday when I went afk. The screensaver came on. I came back in about an hour later and took it off screensaver and clicked on my IE icon. After that, it just froze. It wouldn't even power itself off so I manually did it. From there is where I'm at right now with my problem.

Hope this isn't too long of a post. Any help at all would really be most appreciated. Thank you.

Zxian · #2 01-11-2005, 12:57 AM

Put your WindowsXP CD into your CD-Drive and load from it. Follow the instructions to repair your installation and to use the Recovery Console.

Have a look at this site. The instructions are for Windows2000, but they are essentially the same. Look at the section titled "Recovering from Boot Problems" and follow the instructions there. It might be useful to print off the instructions to have them with you when you do this. You won't have any access to the internet while you're in the recovery console. Also... forget the mouse, everything in the recovery console is done by keyboard commands.

Hope this helps.

coreman · #3 01-11-2005, 10:39 AM

Thanks Zxian. I'll definitely try that.

Is there a way that I can check my hard drive first though to make sure it is even still good? Would the easiest way to check it be to hook it up to my second computer's cd-rom drive and if it's still ok it'll be picked up and I can open it?