The other day I re-booted the computer and all he-- broke loose. It went to a blue sacreen and a ton of lines went flying by telling me that something was very wrong. Wound up saying something like sector 8922 was unreadable and wound up booting to the default XP setting without all my icons. Only four came up. This process took over 45 minutes.

Long story short after rebooting a dozen times trying everything I knew how to I found the restore option and went back a week or so. It told me that this was impossible but did boot into the proper screen and all my stuff reappeared. It worked perfectly until tonite and now it won't boot at all. Gets to the WinXP screen and then reboots itself again and again.

I tried safe mode and that doesn't work either, nor does the last known good config. No matter what I do it reboots over and over to the winxp screen, then shuts off and does it again.

I am about to bring in my shop computer so that I can work in the office, but I really need to get this resolved. Do I take it in or does someone know what I can do to get past this problem? I have never had this happen before.

What is the make and model of the computer?

Is it under warranty?

Do you have an XP CD?

If so is it retail or OEM?

It's a Dell Optiplex 270...used...no warranty, have CD, bought it at Garland Computers in Dallas.

Speaking of SLLOOOOOWWW the Dell Support web site is currently unresponsive.

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...=us&l=en&s=gen

I would like to look up that Optiplex 270 manual. I am trying.

In the meantime try to boot the XP CD into the Recovery Console as seen here:

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

The first option I'd suggest is:

Command Prompt:

chkdsk /r

I can't even get to the command prompt safe mode screen, much less boot into XP. Also just realized my Cd is home edition instead of XP pro and did not come with this computer.

You should have the CD that belongs to this computer but as to the Recovery Console any XP CD should work.

You need to boot the CD. Verify in your BIOS that the CD drive is set to boot prior to the hard drive.

Then:

Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.

When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.

If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console.

When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.

At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to diagnose and repair your Windows XP installation.

chkdsk /r

This might be over my head...never even seen the bios....how do I get there?

Again, unfortunately, the Dell support site is not responding at this time.

Usually when the computer starts up (boots) you will see on the bottom of the screen instructions such as:

Press Delete to enter Setup. Or Press F2 to enter Setup.

In the BIOS setup you can adjust the boot menu.

It might already be set to boot the CD.

Try inserting the CD and startup. Watch the screen for a prompt to: Press any key to boot CD.

Thanks Jephree...I'll give that a try.

I changed the boot sequence in setup and nothing different. It will not boot period...same thing happens each time. BTW it's a GX270.

I am going to check back on this thread in the morning....have to be up wayyy early. Thanks for the help so far....I printed the instructions for tomorrow just in case.

Thanks again, Kelly