hi Its me again,birdman,can any one help,every time I switch my computor on,I get the black screen and a message saying your computor refused to start a few times,next I get the computor will start in ,then it starts at 1 second upto 9 befor the computor starts,also when I put a cd,or dvd in, the computor switches off on its own,Ive got the windows xp disk,even putting that in the compartment to try and reinstall windows ,the computor turns off on its own again,Ive tried system restor but it will not do a restore,any help please for a silver serfer in distress,birdman1

Just to clarify:

You can get into Windows but you always pass through the black screen (Safe Mode Options) with the countdown to start Windows Normally. Is this correct?

If so and the CD is shutting down the computer my first suspect would be the CD drive itself.

Can you boot your XP CD?

Also try to run Check Disk: Go to start Run... and type: cmd

Then type: chkdsk /f

You will be told the volume is in use: Do you want to run chkdsk on next boot? Type Y and reboot the computer.

hi there,I cant boot with the xp disk,the computor just turnes off and back on again on its own, If I put a disk in the cd player or the dvd rewriter it turns the computor of,Ive tryed a disc check alls well,birdman

I'd try a new DVD/CD drive.

hi again,thanks for the info,if the dvd drive has had it,will it affect the cd drive aswell, as they are both connected to the same ide cable,if I put a disk in the cd or dvd drive it turns the computor off,Ive disconected them both and the computor is running fine,what do you say please,birdman.

Try a new cable. 80 wire preferably over 40 wire.

Also look in the Device Manager at your Secondary IDE channel. Any errors or exclamation points?

Another test would be to hook one of the drives up as the Primary slave just to see if the drives work. If the drives work and the cable is good then we are looking at the motherboard port. Secondary IDE slot.

Ive got the DVD and PC rom woring,thanks,but it takes ages for my computor to boot up from first switching no,(computor faild to start a few times befor),this comes on twice befor the countdown to nine seconds startes,and this is slow,as soon as wimdows xp is loaded all is fine and fast,just the first time switching on,is the problem,any help please birdman.

What is the make and model of the computer? Is it old?

Have you ever opened it and cleaned it of dust etc.?

The Power Supply Unit might be starting to raise questions. You can get a PSU tester at most any electronics store for about $20 US or so.

Another idea would be to flash your BIOS to the latest version.