Computer freezes

Hi All
My son was messing around with the computer the other day and deleted a few files so i tried to repair using the "windows XP profesional" cd.
All was going well until we had a power cut due to bad weather .Now when i reboot the computer, all goes well until the windows logo pops up on the screen .Then i get a message " windows is now continuing setup" then the computer just freezes, I have tried to boot it a few times but this is as far as it gets . Thanks in advance for your help

 

WELCOME TO MAJOR GEEKS Dayvo from Oz, first thought is do you have a bootable CD??? If so you should be able to boot from it, and do a "Repair Install" from there. Hope that helps, and keep posting, the first one is always the hardest

 

Thanks for the big Welcome, Yes i have tried booting from the CD , but it still only gets to the "Windows is now continuing setup " then just hangs there.
i also used my Windows xp start-up floppy disks to no avail. I can reformat the hard drive , but only want to do this as a last resort as there are things on it that i haven't backed up. ( ok, make that everything on the hard drive that i haven't backed up)
Cheers from down under ,Dayvo

 

Well if you have another pc or a friend with a pc you can try and take out the hard drive, connect it to your friends PC, back up your data and then reformat. Please note only do this if you know what you are doing. If you are interested in doing it let me know and I'll post more detailed instructions. It will mean opening up your PC. Anyway that's all I can think of. I'm a firm believer in Formating everytime windows breaks.

 

I'm thinking that there maybe another problem other than a corrupted file, for it should boot from your "Bootable CD", RAM, Video card, USB, PSU or even faulty HD, something is stopping your OS from loading. You can't get into "Safe Mode" with your "Bootable CD"????, cause from there you can eliminate stuff alot easier than swapping out stuff, or (gasp) reformating and losing stuff only to find that you have a bad stick of memory. Post back Dayvo on what you find

 

Hi again ,
First let me thank you guys for your quick responses, Second, i have swapped the hard drive with a spare one i found and the computer works like a charm. ( i'm using it to post this )So i think we can put it down to the hard drive. I even managed to re-boot it with my old Windows M.E start up disk ,but it always freezes at the same spot.P.S i'm not real computer "savvy"
just enough to get me by. ( and in the shite lol )

 

Ok Guys ,Managed to sort it out . I set my other hard drive as "Master" and the corrupt one as "Slave" and managed to acsess the files i needed .
So thanks once again for all you help guys .You guys are "GOLD"