Laptop won't boot up

My son had his PC on during the night of April 25. When he woke up the following morning, the 26th, his PC was off. Attempts to restart were futile. Starting, the Dell logo comes on and the screen goes to the safe mode screen start, prompts for one of several startups, i.e., Safe Mode, etc.,,Use last known good configuration, etc. Attempts at using any of these choices has the same affect, WindowsXP logo screen and then a blank, black screen.

Bottom line is that not only does the computer not start, I can't even get into safe mode to debug. Now what choices do I have. Someone told me that it might have been hit with the Chernoble virus April 26th Date significance). Don't know, but is there a fix and if so how do I go about it without having access to the Safe Mode???? Help!

I tried using the reinstallation disk that came with the PC, but it won't boot even with this disk. Anyone have a similar problem??

 

Unplug, pull the battery, wait about 15 to 30 mins, then put back in battery, and press and hold the power button to boot. If you can get into the Bios, then the computer is okay. When you exit the Bios and let it boot, press F8 to get into the choice menu, and choose Safe Mode. It is possible that the hard drive went out, due to I doubt he got the Chernoble Virus, which is a very old virus, and would of been killed if he had any type of A/V protection running.

 

.Nerver had the virus but have had the fix for a number of years.

Put both fixes onto a floppy. Hopefully you can get to a prompt commannd from bootup to run them.

Try fix-cih.exe first

 

Did as you said, removed battery, hit F2, got into the Bios, then booted using safe mode, but no channge. Last Screen Says:

"Stop: co0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\Software
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent or not writable.

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator of technical support group for further assistance."

Any other possibilities???

 

can you tell us what O.S. it is running please?

 

It is XP. Moondoggy, try a Repair install of XP (boot with cd, pass the 1st Repair screen, until you get to where XP asks for install, and in there, there should be an option to Repair). Sounds like the Registry got hosed somewhere.

 

windows XP

 

I tried, the cd won't boot up

 

Did you alter the BIOS so that booting from the CD is option #1.
Usually booting from the hard drive (C) is option #1. Bazza

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No, it boots the CD, but it won't load the operating system.