Why me?

[Zephik]

I think I'm just about to have a mental break down.

So right now I'm on a live ubuntu disc, thank god I decided to keep it. Too bad I decided to throw out all my old keyboards during the move a few weeks ago, because this one decided that it didn't like w, s and the space bar anymore [its missing a key, so I use a screw driver to press it, which caused unnoticed wear and tear on the circuit board, yay]. Luckily my younger brother is gone so I can borrow his for now.

Okay, so this is whats up. When I restarted my computer the other day, it decided that it no longer liked me, so every time it comes to the Windows XP loading screen, it restarts the computer.

Even better, its ridiculously difficult to get into the bios options menu or whatever that is, because I always have to push F2 because of some fan failure warning. Its always been like that though, so I don't really mind. But before, I could of just pushed F2 to continue past the fan failure warning and then push F1 to get into the bios menu. Now, I have to spend like 10 minutes turning my computer on and off until I get lucky and somehow get into the bios menu. Which I finally did, and it was pointless and didn't help me figure out whats wrong at all. *pulls hair out*

Here is what I have done thus far to try and figure out what is wrong.

I've dismantled everything aside from taking out the motherboard/cpu, and then reassembled it all back together. After all of that I still got the same issue with it restarting at the loading screen.

I've taken out the memory modules and I have replaced them. [yay, 20 dollars I didn't have, god I have awesome friends]. Still getting the same issue with it restarting at the windows xp loading screen.

I've even tried using less hardware, like the bare essentials, which didn't work. So I then tried adding more hardware, which was just an extra cd rom drive. Obviously that didn't help either.

I've checked all the wires to make sure none were loose or broken or burnt or anything like that. They all checked out fine as far as I can tell, which is saying at least something because I can see some pretty small detail with these eyes of mine.

So does anyone have any idea what could be wrong? or any way I can test to figure out whats wrong? OR SOMETHING?

Right now in my life, I depend so immensely on my computer and having an internet connection. I live out in the middle of nowhere with bankrupt parents that are borrowing a ton of money from family. So until maybe around april, if we're lucky, I'll be able to move into town once again and get a job. Without a computer/internet, I'm gonna lose it. I don't even have a room here, I'm just on a mattress in the hallway/room. So I'm already going crazy as it is. So if anyone can help me figure out this issue at all, I'll be so effing grateful.

Thanks so much in advance, I really really appreciate it!

[HackSore]

Sounds like your windows install has screwed up, try using chkdsk, might fix the problem, failing that, try doing a repair install.

If neither of those work, you might be looking at a full format and re-install of windows.

EDIT: missed the bit about having trouble with the bios, could be hard drive failure also

[Scotty]

if he can use ubuntu live the hdd is fine. It does sound like a XP install issue. If you still have an XP disk try repairing or if you hvae to a full restore. As for the fan issue with the BIOS you should ne able to disable warnings somewhere to stop that

[Zephik]

I was going to say that I don't have any of those repair/restore discs or whatever you want to call them, but my younger brother does. The thing is, they only work for his computer. So I had an idea. What I'm going to try is plugging my hdd into his pc and going from there, since I believe the only reason those discs know not to work with other computers is because of the hardware, since the program on them starts up just after the boot post. So hardware is the only thing that they really have to go off of. The bios should auto update the hardware changes too I believe, so it should work. They're both hp too, so that might help.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Question: Will running the repair or whatever program is on those discs wipe out all my data?

[Zephik]

if he can use ubuntu live the hdd is fine. It does sound like a XP install issue. If you still have an XP disk try repairing or if you have to a full restore. As for the fan issue with the BIOS you should ne able to disable warnings somewhere to stop that

Actually my hdd is uplugged, I'm running ubuntu live from my cd rom drive. So it could be my hdd, which in that case I'll be very pissed off. I just bought that hdd maybe a lil over a month ago. I have bought SO many hdd's this past year, it is effing bs. I only buy Seagate too, so I'm not exactly cheap. My external that died on me was a Maxtor, which is now owned by Seagate I believe. So maybe Seagate is just a **** brand? I always thought they were good/quality brand?

I've looked multiple times on how to disable that. Its a cpu fan warning, all it says is to immediately contact a technician or whatever. It also only gives me like 5 seconds to hit the F2 key, really annoying. The fan is fine too, btw. Stupid Hp.

[Scotty]

If you plug your HDD in the with the Ubuntu live CD you can see contents of the drive, or should be able too. No idea why i thought a live CD needed a HDD...

[HackSore]

Question: Will running the repair or whatever program is on those discs wipe out all my data?

Running chkdsk will scan for errors and such on the drive, and fix them if nessecary, as far as i know, this process is completely safe in term of keeping your personal data intact. i would advise trying this first.

As for a repair install, most of the time, the windows installation can be repaired without loss of data, but data loss is a possibility.

If you have important data on the hard drive, best thing to do is put it in another machine and back up everything that is important first, then stick it back in your machine and go at it!

[xRyokenx]

Western Digital makes good HDDs btw.

I've had XP crash on me a LOT lately. Once it wouldn't allow me to run any programs (said "example.exe is not a valid system32 application") or reboot ("You do not have permission to reboot this computer" ...wtf? It's my damn computer! lol)... and just a couple days ago everything started to refuse to function again... I'd try reinstalling it.

Good luck with this dude... I can't think of what it could be... sorry I can't come up with anything more helpful.

[Luke122]

Try to reset the bios to factory defaults.

Next, check to make sure all your fans are starting with power up.. it's possible a fan is sticking a bit on startup, just taking a bit longer to get going.. that will report as a fan error.

Make sure you enable USB legacy and USB emulation (if you have it) in your bios.

Can you get to safemode? If so, try starting in safemode with command prompt, and running chkdsk /mbr.

If not, Seagate offers something called "seatools" to do drive repairs.. as mentioned above, do a backup of your data before you start trying to repair it.

[Spawn-Inc]

if you haven't done anything yet keep pressing F8 after post and go to last known good configuration or w/e it's called. it worked for my problem a week or so ago. try that as its easy to do.