Help Please! PC won't boot up after BIOS upgrade!

[Katmandu]

try booting in safe mode and then schedule a check disk on your HD, if not use ur XP cd and select repair

I won't even boot up into Safe Mode at this point.

I do get the Windows XP splash screen when I try to Boot up "Normally" and using "Last known Good Configuration". Both settings go into REBOOT. There
is a split second flash of the BSOD, but not near slow enough to catch ANY info from it.

 

[Katmandu]

When you boot to the windows CD,

I dont think my XP CD is bootable.

I configured the BIOS to boot from the CD and nothing happens. Actually, the prompt "CD" appears on the screen but nothing happens from there.

I'm going to try booting from one of my other HDs (and or Partitions). I have a couple of them that are bootable (if I can remember which one's they are...).

Could it be the Boot Sector is corrupt on the Main hard drive ??

 

[Katmandu]

Ok, I pulled the MBs battery and cleared the CMOS no problem. Still no changes to the boot up problem on my main HD.

However, I DID change the boot up sequence in the BIOS to boot from one of my "other (backup)" HDs. And it WORKED !!

Now..... how do I go about repairing my MAIN HDs Boot Sector so my PC will boot from it. Of course, all my PCs settings are configured off the Main HD.

How do I go about recovering my Main HD settings to my "backup" HD ???

 

[Katmandu]

how do I go about repairing my MAIN HDs Boot Sector so my PC will boot from it. Of course, all my PCs settings are configured off the Main HD.

How do I go about recovering my Main HD settings to my "backup" HD ???

 

[littleman2030]

If you can boot to another HD or make the main HD a slave on any PC, go to a command prompt and change to the main drive (which is the slave at this point) and run chkdsk /r. It will lock down the drive from being used till the process is finished and after it is done, you should be able to boot to it no problem IF...it is a sector issue.

 

[Katmandu]

If you can boot to another HD or make the main HD a slave on any PC, go to a command prompt and change to the main drive (which is the slave at this point) and run chkdsk /r. It will lock down the drive from being used till the process is finished and after it is done, you should be able to boot to it no problem IF...it is a sector issue.

Ok, I was able to run a chkdsk /r on the drive and it found/fixed 24kb.

Still NO change in the boot up issue.

It still gets to the Window XP slash screen and then starts to Reboot.

Can I run a XP Setup from another HD to reinstall the O/S on it ???

 

[littleman2030]

No you can not load windows while booted up to another installation of windows. It would be SO nice if you could.

 

[Katmandu]

No you can not load windows while booted up to another installation of windows. It would be SO nice if you could.

No doubt....

How do I go about accessing this HD so I can reinstall the O/S ??

 

[grimtofu]

i had this problem once. nothing could fix it. turned out to be a bad virus. i ended up having to reformat. doing that is easy. either do it from a command promt, from inside windows, or with another operating system, such as the lovely and free knoppix. =) do NOT try to do any of these if you dont know what you are doing, can access the hd as a slave and see all the data, etc. oh, and to load a cd, sometimes you need to make a floppy with 'autorun.exe' on it. that points the comp to the cd, and loading should be smooth. that is, if you even have a floppy drive. if you do, then repairing your original hd should be a snap.