Unable to boot XP...

[cfwagoner]

Hi all, new member here.

First, this is my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron and she's a good distance away from me. I am trying to get this solved over the phone with her, so it's been a tad difficult.

It's got XP Home installed. She let her cousin borrow it and now it won't start up. Let me explain. She starts it up and it mentions something about an improper shut down the last time. I tried to get her into safe mode, etc etc, but for some reason, after F8 brings up the list to choose boot options, the darn thing won't let her change from what's selected (boot normally which makes her reboot). The arrow keys should work, right? She should be able to move it up and down through the list. This is the point I'm at and I can't get any further. Like most situations I come across, she can't find the cd that came with the laptop to boot from. I'm trying to get her to hunt it down. Dell does have that extra utility partition, but I don't know a thing about what it has on it.

So, first off, I'm wondering why she can't change what's selected in the boot up choices with the arrow keys. The sooner she can get to a prompt or safe mode, the better I will feel. It's been ages since I've done any troubleshooting on Windows, so I'm not up to date on what tools I have at my disposal.

[Kevin_gibson]

First thing you need to check is if the keyboard is fully functional.

If you can get in to BIOS - F1, F2, Del, F10, depending on the configuration of your machine, if you can access this, and your arrow keys DON'T work, then your keyboard has had it.

If they do, its a software problem and you'll need to reinstall Windows.

For a long shot, try a PS2 keyboard attached, see if that helps.

Hope this helps.

[cfwagoner]

I do know she can get into the bios and navigate through. I don't believe reinstalling Windows is the solution though. It sounds a bit extreme. Surely there's a way to repair. I'd hate to think every solution involves reinstalling Windows every time someone's computer can't boot.

[cfwagoner]

Or maybe recommend a decent boot disk she can download and burn to a cd from her other computer.