XP Home not responding

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Howdy: When we boot up into XP (which takes forever) the desktop shows
with al the icons and all items present in the taskbar, but when we
click on an icon to launch a program, the hour glass shows up for a
bit and you can hear the hard drive spinning up and then nothing! We
have tried everything. We can open up the Start menu, but clicking on
any item in there results in nothing. We can open the RUN box and type
in MSCONFIG but, again, when we click ENTER nothing happens.

When booting up there is also an option to Go Back (guess this is
Norton?) but we can not select any of the buttons to perform this
function and we have no mouse control. The arrow keys don't work in
this window either.

My neighbor said that she left for about 3 weeks and the power went
out around her house and the computer was turned on by the outage! And
the problems started then. Also, the CD-ROM drive has no power, but
she never used it before and doesn't know if that is a recent
occurance or has been that way since her son gave her the computer a
couple of years ago.

Could this be a power supply problem? It's beyond my limited knowledge
base, for sure. Any help would be appriciated. I don't know her
computer specs, either, sorry.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Did you try a Repair option

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
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"Lowrent" <lowrent3@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1l7ksizgdvxk8$.1e9u3i5ix6ie6$.dlg@40tude.net...
> Howdy: When we boot up into XP (which takes forever) the desktop shows
> with al the icons and all items present in the taskbar, but when we
> click on an icon to launch a program, the hour glass shows up for a
> bit and you can hear the hard drive spinning up and then nothing! We
> have tried everything. We can open up the Start menu, but clicking on
> any item in there results in nothing. We can open the RUN box and type
> in MSCONFIG but, again, when we click ENTER nothing happens.
>
> When booting up there is also an option to Go Back (guess this is
> Norton?) but we can not select any of the buttons to perform this
> function and we have no mouse control. The arrow keys don't work in
> this window either.
>
> My neighbor said that she left for about 3 weeks and the power went
> out around her house and the computer was turned on by the outage! And
> the problems started then. Also, the CD-ROM drive has no power, but
> she never used it before and doesn't know if that is a recent
> occurance or has been that way since her son gave her the computer a
> couple of years ago.
>
> Could this be a power supply problem? It's beyond my limited knowledge
> base, for sure. Any help would be appriciated. I don't know her
> computer specs, either, sorry.

 

[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Lowrent wrote:

> Howdy: When we boot up into XP (which takes forever) the desktop shows
> with al the icons and all items present in the taskbar, but when we
> click on an icon to launch a program, the hour glass shows up for a
> bit and you can hear the hard drive spinning up and then nothing! We
> have tried everything. We can open up the Start menu, but clicking on
> any item in there results in nothing. We can open the RUN box and type
> in MSCONFIG but, again, when we click ENTER nothing happens.
>
> When booting up there is also an option to Go Back (guess this is
> Norton?) but we can not select any of the buttons to perform this
> function and we have no mouse control. The arrow keys don't work in
> this window either.
>
> My neighbor said that she left for about 3 weeks and the power went
> out around her house and the computer was turned on by the outage! And
> the problems started then. Also, the CD-ROM drive has no power, but
> she never used it before and doesn't know if that is a recent
> occurance or has been that way since her son gave her the computer a
> couple of years ago.
>
> Could this be a power supply problem? It's beyond my limited knowledge
> base, for sure. Any help would be appriciated. I don't know her
> computer specs, either, sorry.

It sounds like - at the very least - your user account was corrupted by
the power outage. Are there other accounts on the system? If so, try
logging in with one of those. Does the same thing happen? If it does,
then you can try a Repair Install:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If you don't have another account made, see if you can get in with the
normally hidden Administrator account in Safe Mode. To get into Safe
Mode, repeatedly tap the F8 key as the computer is starting up. The
default password for Administrator is blank. If you can successfully
log in that way, create a new account for yourself and copy over the
data from the old account:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=811151

If nothing works for you, then first read any GoBack documentation about
anything special you need to do with the program (like disabling it)
before you try the Repair Install. If the Repair Install doesn't work,
then you are probably looking at a full format/clean install. Before
you get to that point though, doing some hardware diagnostics would be
smart just in case components were damaged by the outage.

That should give you some things to start troubleshooting with.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User