asubaseball727 Posted May 24, 2009 CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 Hi all, The other my brother was using the computer, wanted to turn it off, but had the mouse unplugged so he just held the in the power button on the front of the tower. The next morning, the computer would not boot. The Dell screen loads when I turn the computer on, and it brings me to the screen where I choose how to start windows (Safe mode, last successful bootup, normally etc.). However, when I choose any of the options, it gets to the windows loading screen and reboots immediately to the dell startup which redirects me to the how to start windows screen. I'm guessing windows may have been corrupted. Would I be able to boot a version of windows from a flash drive, move the data I want to my second HDD, and then reformat the HDD with the corrupt windows? Any other ideas? Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coknuck Posted May 24, 2009 CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 I had a similar problem when I took out a USB Flash Drive. I had to shut everything down and and re set the COMS battery. Then it all started working good again. Hope this helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asubaseball727 Posted May 24, 2009 Author CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 Okay, so from what I have read, I reset the CMOS battery just by pulling it out, allowing it to sit for a few minutes, putting it back in, and then resetting the pc. Is that what you did Coknuck? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asubaseball727 Posted May 24, 2009 Author CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 Also, when I am taking the battery out, do I unplug the PC from the wall and make sure no power is supplied, or just manually turn the PC off? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asubaseball727 Posted May 24, 2009 Author CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 Update: I pulled the battery out with the computer unplugged, tried resetting and it didn't change anything. Other suggestions?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coknuck Posted May 24, 2009 CID Share Posted May 24, 2009 Yes make sure its unplugged from the wall and ground youeself to the PSU so you don't do a static discharge to the motherboard. Also you might see a jumper with coms next to it with 3 prongs move the clip to the one thats bare and the middle one and it will clear the battery without taking it out. Now put the jumper back where it was before you moved it, plug it bak to the wall and give it a try. I can't tell you how important it is to ground yourself to the PSU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starship_troopers Posted May 25, 2009 CID Share Posted May 25, 2009 you may have a bad boot sector...i mean the MBR...if you have a windows cd you can reinstall your boot files into the windows folder without having to format...you may have to retype in the activation key though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mudmanc4 Posted May 25, 2009 CID Share Posted May 25, 2009 you may have a bad boot sector...i mean the MBR...if you have a windows cd you can reinstall your boot files into the windows folder without having to format...you may have to retype in the activation key though. I agree, sometimes when we shut them off like that, they get corrupted. I always go back to putting the installation disk in, booting to it, then install , then repair, it will search for previous versions , then choose repair, it takes as long as it would to install, but if it wont boot , then there's only a couple things you can do. And unless your pretty good at manually modifying the MBR by booting from a utility such as parted, and I don't recommend it if your new to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starship_troopers Posted May 25, 2009 CID Share Posted May 25, 2009 definately, i had the power go out on my old dell while it was on and i had the same problem as described so i tried everything but turns out it was the boot record. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark06 Posted August 5, 2009 CID Share Posted August 5, 2009 Ok before you do anything else Heres what your going to do if u want to save anything First go to LinuxMint.com Download Version 7 "Gloria" universal. then burn it using an iso burner put this on the broken pc and select to boot a live cd ok so this might take a while eventually you will see a desktop (the whole OS is running from CD) then go to my computer click on your hard drive and it should mount it You should be able to see the contents in it. If you are plug in a USB drive open another my comp box mount the USB and drag folders to your USB drive It might seem long or hard but trust me its not you can also use the internet from it so you can look for more permanent solutions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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