Our home pc, windows xp, wont boot-up, just keeps going to the screen which asks you to restart in safe mode, or return to last known operating mode, etc. no matter which option i choose it just cycles round and round unable to start windows. it's not used that often & was ok a few days ago, it has up to date virus protection etc. any idea's please.
Something's corrupt, can you select safe mode without network etc? Does that boot? Could be a corrupt driver try all of the options if it boots then shutdown, restart and see if it boots normally. If not you'll probably need the XP/recovery disc and go from there
What he said however if in any of the steps you get a error message do post it here. Even if you get blue screen post the 0x0000 error line.
Thanks, no error messages, have today removed the 2 hard drives & fitted into enclosures, the 80 GB one i can open with my lap top & see all the files on it, unfortunately they are not the ones i need to recover, the 160GB one i can hear it spin up, but then makes a low rumbling/chattering noise over & over again, & wont open. do we think it's f---ed?
Harry is the rumbling sound random like disc is working hard, reading stuff or is it repetitive in constant intervals, kind off like long clicks? What I mean is can you hear it spin up at start before the rumbling noise come in. Spinning up is unmistakable sound over all the other sounds. If it does spin up and does rumbling later like said is it repetitive rumbling in intervals or constant one? Does it mount aka do you get a drive letter in my computer to access it (even if you can not access it from there)?
If it is constant rumbling then more often then not hard drive as hardware is fine but data got we bit damaged or maybe even not data but just MBR. If MBR you stand huge chance of easy fix, if data you will recover all of it but depending how you will do it and what you want to recover it might be very hard to super easy.
I can hear it spin up, the 'chatter' is not constant, but repeats the same pattern, yes i do get a drive number when i plug it into my lap top, it says F:/ is not accessable. Error performing in page operation
Sorry man but as it is a constant sound arm that moves the head that reads the dish is stuck or worse scratching the surface of dish storing data. Head arm is stuck because it's motor is damaged (or electronics controlling it but unlikely), dish is damaged and does not let it continue over certain point (it would also make it scratch the dish then) or something has shifted and it is out of alignment. Sad to say it is mostly not house fix. I had a few disks like that fail and I had to recover data from them. I opened disk up, by hand (not touching head or discs) moved the head arm in to neutral position that it is located at when disk is off, booted it up and quickly copied stuff off. A one time task mostly as open disk will not work for long. However on second disk when I opened it head arm was in correct position it was the motor that failed so I moved the discs of HDD to another HDD of same manufacturer and did a quick copy. I can advise you to try two things. One plug the HDD back to your USB case and do a windows shutdown on the laptop with it connected, that is after disk has showed up. Then wait 3 -4 s and power off your external case (if your external hdd case has no extra power supply just boot the laptop back up after 1 or 2 seconds). When you done that. Power on the case first and wait 3 -4 s till HDD fully spins up and should hopefully not click as you only introduced power so arm of the head will be in neutral then. Power on the laptop, let windows boot up and try accessing HDD. If you manage copy first most important files as quick as you can, preferably one file at the time as HDD will lock up as soon as it hits damaged area. Option two is disconnect the HDD, stand it up on the desk vertical pins connecting it down and tap couple of times at the top and then bottom of the HDD about 1/5 up from pins up (to be extra certain just tap from bottom till 1/3 up). If arm is just stuck hopefully it will dislodge it. If it suddenly works again copy quickly preferably file by file. Both fixes are not invasive and if you do have to recover data you can still send it to professional afterwards. Both of those situations did help me in the past but that is HDD dependent.
