System Crash

Hi,

My kids have crashed my computer!! It is AMD Athalon XP running Windows xp home. It will not even start therefore I can't even do the read me. I started to, but spybot wanted to restart the comp so reluctantly I did and that was it, no more computer. I don't have the windows cd and am hoping not to lose anything as I have all of my husbands work files on it!!!!!!:cry Is there some kind of recovery disk I can get that wont make me lose everything???? I noticed something was wrong when all of the Icons,start menu and tray had like webdings under them and the type was very old computer style writing??? Thanks so much for your help.

mneenee

 

Have you tried to start your system in Windows Safe Mode?
Here is a guide to how to do that:
To get into the Windows XP Safe mode, as the computer is booting tap the "F8 key" continuously until you get the startup menu. Use your arrow keys to move to "Safe Mode with network" and press your Enter key.

if you can get here you will be able to run the "READ ME"

 

Thanks for the info. Am searching for the recovery cd.And will try to hook it up to another pc if i can't find it. Thanks again.

Mneenee

 

I've been dealing with these crashes all week. Here's what I've found.

1. You can probably run Windows Reecovery Console from your Windows installation CD. Now it's quite limited, especially if you have prepped your system to use it (by previously enabling the 'set' command from Windows, or making a special boot CD), but it may still be enough to fix your computer. You'll probably need another computer there though to read instructions from the internet...

2. Acronis True Image v11 (maybe earlier versions...) may get the data out even if Windows needs a fresh reinstall. It's software for making full backups of your drives. You can also use it (or its CD or Recovery CD made with it on another, working, computer) to boot the crashed computer into the Acronis program, use it to make a backup of the crashed hard drive onto an external hard disk or DVDs, and then use a second computer (with Acronis installed) to explore the copy of the crashed hard disk. That way you at the very least get your data out, and you may even figure out what went wrong by looking at what system files were modified prior to the crash. However, Acronis True Image is not freeware. If that's a problem, try searching for a freeware alternative, but this strategy worked for me after a nasty crash that left me unable to boot to Windows...