issue restoring factory settings

Hi

I'm new here and was wondering if any kind soul can help me with an issue i'm having.

I have just restored my factory settings using F10 during start up. I've been through the new set up options and i'm told that i have successfully completed set up. It tells me to click 'finish' and i'll be up and running again; however, when i click finish i just get the egg timer permanently and it goes nowhere. I left it for an hour last night with no joy. I'm prepared for the worst and suspect something fundamental is wrong, but any help or pointers would be more than gratefully received.

Cheers

Jamie

 

Please give some info Hardware, OS

 

sorry, good point!

it's an old HP desktop, about 4 years old, i couldn't give you RAM, processor specifics etc without being in front of it...it runs Windows XP home.

thanks for your time

 

What problems were you having that you wanted to do a restore

 

ok, bit of a long story

i have an old creative MP3 player that has stopped being recognised by the creative software...i spoke to someone at a company called Microgenic Systems who suggested that Windows Media PLayer 11 causes problems such as that, and suggested removing it. I did that, but still no joy. I thought it won't hurt to restore factory settings, as there's so much stuff on the PC (it's a second PC that i haven't had online for ages- i just really used it for this old MP3 player, as it won't run with Vista on my newer laptop) that i don;t use, and it runs sooooo slowly, that it might just do to start again, i'd seen an 'expert' do it before a few years ago when i had a virus that he couldn't get rid of, and (probably foolishly) thought it could solve all problems.

 

I would format the Hard drive and reinstall XP you can do the formatting during the installation.

 

problem is, i can't start up my pc....each time i try and start it up it goes to the same screen, asking me to click 'finish' and then just clocks forever

 

Are you pressing F10 to choose your boot options

 

ok, do you mean when i begin start up, should i press F10 when the option comes up at the bottom of the screen? Sorry for sounding so much like a novice, but i am a novice!

 

Yes what you must do is to get your computer to boot to your windows installation disk (you do have one, I hope) and you must reinstall windows. You will get to a screen where you will have to options of formatting the drive, do it. Just take it slow it’s not very difficult.

 

ok, i shall do that this evening.....thanks very much for your help