Computer help! Please :(?

Question

At first this happened:

'I have a gateway windows xp desktop computer. When I turn the computer on it shows the gateway screen. Then it goes to a black screen with white writing that says "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this." etc.
It gives me 5 start ups to choose from: Safe mode, Safe mode w/networking, Safe mode with command prompt, Last known good configuration (your most recent settings that worked), or Start Windows normally.
It gives me about 30 seconds to choose one of the options.
No matter which one i choose the computer restarts and the entire process starts over again.
I cannot access log in page or desktop.'

But now when I turn on the computer it just comes on with a black screen and white writing and at the bottom it says:

'Disk boot from CD _' but I don't know what this means I've left it to load but the screen doesn't change past this.

How do I get my computer to work again? Will I need a start up CD or something because I don't think I have those anymore :/

Please help!

Answer 1

You might be able to restore factory settings, but you will lose all your personal data, if it works your computer will be restored to the same as when new.



Just noticed your os is XP, not sure if this will work with XP but worth a try.



For Gateway you need to hold down the Alt key and start tapping F10 as soon as you switch on, to bring up the restore option.

Answer 2

On a Mac, shift/administration/3 takes a image of the show. in case you press shift/administration/4, you could click and drag over the section you like; the image is taken once you launch the mouse button.

Answer 3

If yours is SATA cable pls check weather it plugged properly.to ur motherboard . if its plugged properly means .. then it might be bad sector in ur HARD DRIVE . U ve to replace the hard disk of ur PC

Answer 4

Assuming that your hard drive didn't crash, order replacement XP Recovery disks, directly from Gateway.



If your hard drive did crash, have Gateway replace the hard drive, and re-install XP.



TIP: BUY XP anyway, you will need it later.

Answer 5

if you got your xp cd, try to boot it and just choose repair you don't need to reformat your pc just try to repair first if it doesn't help then it's to reformat it. i think you pc had been infected by some viruses that messes up your program, that's why is it always essential to have an anti virus on your pc. try also registry cleaner.