stuck in DOS?

Hello.

Running XP Home on a Compaq M2105 laptop.

Computer is stuck on the screen that prompts you to start in safe mode, last known good config, etc.. At the bottom of the screen it says computer will restart in 25 seconds. If I choose nothing, the computer reboots, I see the Windows XP screen, then a quick blue screen, then the Compaq screen, then it goes right back to the black screen that prompts you for safe mode, etc...

If I choose safe mode, last good config, or anything else the same exact thing happens. It's one big loop.

I tried repairing with the operating disk and I still get taken back to the original black screen.

Any ideas? Thanks so much...

Kelly

 

the 'quick blue screen' is the notorious Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). This occurs for one of a few reasons:

1) software or driver conflict. Did you recently install anything new? This BSOD can usually be avoided by booting to safe mode and getting rid of the conflicting driver/program. Probably not the case if you still get a BSOD going to safe mode.

2) Hardware problem. Loose cable, loose RAM, failing piece of hardware, etc...
It may be tedious, but open up any screwable parts of the laptop that you can easily get to and make sure all peripherals are securly in place (remove and re-plug in, preferably) Then see if it lets you into safe mode.

3)Corrupt files on the hard drive. Difficult to diagnose on a laptop. You could try booting to a LiveCD and navigating through your hard drive that way.

4) Corrupt hard drive or corrupt RAM. Hard drive utilities are available from the manufacturers, most are available right here For RAM, you can try Memtest86+

Hopefully you wont have to go through all of those steps, but those are things you can try

 

Oh my, the Blue Screen of Death? That's pretty comical though. I will try all of your suggestions, IYTC. Thanks for the response. The laptop belongs to a relative so I will have to wait until tomorrow to begin these steps. In the meantime, would you mind filling me in on what "Live CD" is?

Thanks again.

 

A LiveCD is the term given to an Operating System on a disc that is bootable straight off of the disc itself. The most common LiveCD's are Linux distributions. Instead of installing the OS onto a hard drive, it is essentially already installed on the CD/DVD, and bootable.

WIth a LiveCD, you can use the CD's OS to view the contents of your hard drive (say, if you needed to delete some files or copy a clean file over a corrupted one.) It is an alternative to doing such things through DOS, if you prefer a GUI. Just a thought, not always practical.

 

Okay, so would an example of a LiveCD then be the operating system disk that came with the laptop? And, if so, how would I view the contents of the hard drive with it? And if I do miraculously make it that far what would I be looking for in the HD?

I'm sorry if these are stupid questions--I'm not really grasping the whole LiveCD concept...

 

I use Knoppix but there are many more available. You will need to burn the ISO with Nero or equivalent. http://www.knoppix.org/

 

I would look into the other possibilities before trying to use a LiveCD to figure things out. If you get that far and still have no luck diagnosing the problem, we'll take it from there