Xp won’t boot

K

kneeslider93

Hi people,
I’m new and have no knowledge of pc’s what so ever so please be kind. As I have plenty of time I thought I would un box my pc that’s been in the loft since we moved 3 years ago and set it all up but it just goes to the screen attached.
I have the genuine windows xp disc but when I press any key it just goes to a black screen!
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks
Steve
 

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turn pc off
unplug everything
press power button for five seconds
touch the metal casing briefly to discharge your hand
very carefully make sure that all components are seated properly,
if it is dusty then blow it out gently with compressed air DO NOT USE A VACUMN
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when you turn on pc, go into the bios and ensure that it is set to either boot from a cd or from the harddrive
==========

is there an operating system on the pc at this time?
make, model, and model number of pc
if there is an OS on the pc now you need to run chkdsk with the /r parameter
IF there is an OS , when you reply to above questions, I will explain how to do checkdisk, if you do not know how, :)
 
Hey Thanks for replying so quick, so I have done what you said, all cleaned out, all the connections are well and truly seated properly.
It is set to boot from the dvd drive,

The pc is a Packard bell istart 1379

There was an operating system on the pc when it was packed away as it was all working.
Unfortunately I don’t know what ‘run chkdsk with the r/parameter’ actually means!
 
Set the bios to boot from the harddrive


http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=102348

How to perform checkdisk

if you do not have Recovery Console installed, then run from the start menu

go to start, run, type in cmd

in cmd type in chkdsk c: /r and press enter (notice space between k and c and between : and /

type Y for yes and press enter

type exit and press enter

restart pc, allow checkdisk to finish and run again at least once until no errors are found

this is a lengthy process depending on the size of your harddrive, the percentages will fluctuate, this is normal, you can view report in the event viewer.

go to start>run> and type in eventvwr.msc, click on the applications directory, and in the right hand panel choose winlogon.

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while this is going on, I will research your pc and see if it is compatible with dvd's, :)
 
EDIT 2: do you have sata drives? xp will not install on sata without sata controllers slipstreamed on the install media
 
Ok so I have set it to boot from hard drive and the message comes up

Media system failure, check cable
Then returns to boot from cd option.

Unfortunately I have no idea of hard drive sizes or what sata drive means, sorry
 
open the case if the cables are thin and flat it is ide if they are narrow it is sata, let me know

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https://www.tech-faq.com/how-to-solve-pxe-e61-media-test-failure-check-cable-error.html

https://ccm.net/faq/40004-pxe-e61-media-test-failure-check-cable

https://www.lifewire.com/pxe-e61-media-test-failure-4156811

according to all above it could be a variety of reasons, read through the above and see if any issue seems probable

another point are you able to press F8 immediatly after turning on pc and booting to safe mode?

was this pc ever on a network?
 
Morning,

I would say the cable is narrow, also on the board it says ‘serial ata’ so would that be sata?

The error as it shows on the following
https://www.tech-faq.com/how-to-solve-pxe-e61-media-test-failure-check-cable-error.html
This is exactly as I see it on the screen
Reading through it sounds like hard drive failure,

If I press f8 I don’t have the option to boot from safe mode and if you mean network as in the internet then yes is was connected.

Is there a way to check the hard drive or would this be a replacement required?
 
by network I mean other pc's all connected with a network password etc, not an internet connection. you can take the harddrive out of the case, connect to another pc either within the case directly or by usb cable to see if the other pc can read the drive and you can at least get the data off of it if you have not backed it up. you can also run checkdisk on the old drive if you can connect it to a different pc and then see if you can boot on it after checkdisk has run.
 
No it has never been connected to a network like that, was just used as a home pc.
It only really was used for a vinyl cutting program, Corel draw and the internet so there’s nothing on there worth recovering
 
then you can go ahead and get a new drive, checkdisk on the drive will show if there are any kb in bad sectors, this is usually a sign that the drive is going bad.
 
Thank you so much for your help by the way, I do appreciate it.

I don’t have another pc to be able to try it and quite frankly wouldn’t know where to start.
If I decided to buy a new hard drive how hard would it be for a complete novice like me to install it?
Or should I just give it to someone that knows what they are doing?
 
Thank you so much for your help so far,
I received the new hard drive and have managed to install xp back on and now it’s all working!
Hopefully the last of the questions now but the fan seems to run very fast and is very noticeable more than it ever used to be to the point it seems like its running at full speed 95% of the time even when the pc is idle and nothing is being used, could this be a separate problem or could this have been another issue that has caused the first problem?
 
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