i think i broke my windows...?

[pjwinkler]

This is weird. I installed a sound card the night before and the next morning my computer wouldn't start up right, everything happens normally until the point where the windows start up screen should come up. It doesn't, I only have a black screen.

So i tried to boot off my Windows CD in hopes of reformating, it starts the cd, says it's doing a hardware scan and then when the windows loading screen should come up I get the same black screen.

PLEASE HELP, I JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO REFORMAT SO I CAN USE MY COMPUTER AGAIN!!!

 

[mechBgon]

Did you take the sound card out yet? If not, try that.

 

[pjwinkler]

yes, and i tried putting it back in, nothing changes. (I now have it removed)

 

[mechBgon]

Is there anything on the hard drive that you want to save before trying something drastic? Because the next thing you might try is nuking the drive completely and then try installing. One tool that could do that is DBAN, although it will take a while using even its quickest option.

 

[pjwinkler]

I'm liking the sound of that. I don't have anything that I need on this computer, I WANT to reformat. So what is this tool for "nuking" my hard drive?

 

[mechBgon]

Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN) is a low-level disk-erasing utility. You can download a CD-ROM image from the link I gave, burn it using Nero Express or whatever, and then boot the computer from it. You should see what to do next... hit M for Method, select the fastest method, and let it rip while you hunt for some snacks

 

[pjwinkler]

thanks so much for your help man. I hope this does the trick.

 

[pjwinkler]

well. It didn't work at all. I tried all the boot commands and it hung every time. What could be wrong with my computer?

 

[mechBgon]

Maybe your hard drive is having a problem. Try the diagnostic utility made by your hard-drive manufacturer, I've got links to most of them at the bottom of this page. Typically, you download their file, run it, and it generates a bootable floppy diskette, or you download a .ISO image of their utility and burn it to a CD. Either way, you then boot the computer from that floppy or CD and have it do the full diagnostic tests.

 

[Lemon law]

To pjwinkler,

You seem to be skipping a pretty basic step--going into the computer bios and setting things to bios defaults--or at least seeing what has changed---after taking out the sound card it balked at, that should have been your first step.---with the next step being some boot from a floppy or a cd to dos to see what kind of shape the C drive is in.

Who knows what the bios has put off limits.

 

[pjwinkler]

thanks lemon but i did try that. My problem now is the fact that I can neither boot off my windows CD OR wipe my hardrive with the previously recomended software... This baffles me lol.

 

[pjwinkler]

Any other "hard disk nuking" software i could try to boot off out there?

 

[Phlargo]

Try and boot something else... like Memtest or another boot disk utility. You might be having a problem with another component - it might be able to help you isolate your hardware as functioning or not. Windows install not starting is almost always related to Memory, Hard Drive, Windows CD, or CPU undervolting in my experience.