computer won't boot... help

[jdport]

Hello,

My computer had been running slowly lately and it hadn't been rebooted in a pretty long time, so I shut it down to reboot it. It installed a bunch of windows updates that were ready to be installed and the shut down properly. When I turned it back on, it comes up with the black scrteen where it says to hit delete to enter bios or F11 for boot options and it just freezes right there. It won't get past that to even try to boot. I have tried reseating the memory, unplugging the hard drive, and reseating the video card. I also tried pulling the memory sticks and booting with just one at a time or in pairs (I have four memory sticks... 1 pair of 512MB sticks and 1 pair of 1GB sticks.). I couldn't get any change regardless of the memory configuration.

Other than maybe being a bit slower than usual, the computer was working perfectly fine and it shutdown completely properly with nothing out of the normal.... so I really don't get what could have suddenly gone bad between shutting it down and restarting it.

I don't really know what to do next... it doesn't even boot enough for me to see what is wrong. Any suggestions? The computer is pretty old and due to be replaced but I don't want to replace it right now.... if anybody has any suggestions to fix this I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Puppies04]

What OS? Sounds like it is corrupted, do you have an OS disk?

 

[jdport]

I have windows xp... i don't think it's a corrupted OS because even if I try to boot off of the OS installation CD it does the same thing... it doesn't get far enough to even check the OS. I also tried booting with the hard drive unplugged and no CD in the drive, and it froze the same way. It did not even get far enough to complaing about not havin a boot device.

 

[RRZNagas]

Here's 2 things I would try first. Reset the bios to default by switching the jumper on the motherboard. If you can't do it that way, pull the motherboard battery for 5 minutes, check that it's still good with a voltmeter if you have one, and replace it if needed.

Also post here with system config so we know what you are working with. What MB, Ram, cpu, etc. It'll help.

 

[C1]

What your computer seems to be telling you is that there's no storage peripheral online/available to load or boot anything. You need to go into the BIOS and:

1. verify which drives are registering as available (eg, DvD Optical and/or Hard Drive).
2. Set the order for your boot devices. Optical Drive first then HDD second should do it.