Lost my operating system....

[astosoup]

A few days ago i woke up to my internet connection being down....when i attempted to reconnect it gave me an error message telling me my verizon name or password was incorrect. The name and pw were both correct so i tried a restart to see if it would solve the problem.Upon restarting the computer continued through to the windows xp professional screen but before windows would boot the computer restarts itself....over and over. I have the original Windows xp cd i bought so i tried a recovery and it asks for my admin name and password....which i never made one. When i try to reinstall windows it just freezes at 34 minutes left.Also it will not boot in safe mode either.The only used component in the whole computer was the power supply and i purchased a new 450w Raidmax. Still no help.Any kind of insight would be appreciated. The computer is:

Geforce 6100sm-m Motherboard.
AMD64 Dual Core 5600+ processor
2gb Ram
160gb SATA HD partitioned in half
Running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
In a Raidmax Sagitta case.

 

[advancedgeek]

is there any sign of failing hard drive? do you hear a clicking noise from it?

 

[H4x3r]

i've had that problem before...it turned out that it was my hard drive going bad..it hadn't gone completely yet, but shortly did..i replaced it and it worked fine...so check your hdd

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Try installing a different OS. If a different OS installs fine, then try a different Windows CD (you might have to download one from a torrent site, but as long as you use your own CD key, you should be fine). A good OS to try installing would be Ubuntu Linux, and it has a partition manager on the CD that you can use, as well as a disk checking utility (I think it has one, not sure). If that installs, then try reinstalling XP (after reformatting your drive).

 

[astosoup]

I havent heard any noises from the drive or anything but i dont want to switch drives and lose all of my data again.

 

[Cunjo]

A few possibilities... the Hard drive is definitely one of the first. If windows is gone and failed to re-install, all your data is probably gone too unless it was on a different partition. If you have a second hard drive on-hand, I would recommend trying to boot into another OS or attaching it to another computer to back up any data you have left, and then testing the drive for errors.

Other possibilities include your RAM, which is fairly easy to test - try taking out one of your memory sticks (I'm assuming you have 2x1GB instead of 1x2GB) and then the other, seeing if it will work with just one or the other.

There are also bootable utilities that you can use to test your RAM and HD.

Finally, it could be your processor overheating, though I'd imagine you would have checked that already, it can't hurt to re-check and clean your heatsink and stuff off to see if it helps.

 

[Lorithad]

I'd put my money on hard drive issues. What i'd do first, is go to recovery console, and do a chkdsk /r

Let that run for however long it needs to, then try reinstalling windows.

 

[EricB]

check ram first. bad ram can make a hdd look bad. run memtest86

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Ubuntu Linux has MemTest86, a partition editor, a disk checker, and other utilities on one bootable CD. Download a copy, burn it to disc, and put it in the drive when you turn on your PC. You can then boot into it. From in there, you can access your hard drives in a graphic environment, copy folders to USB or other hard drives, and do other diagnostic tests. Then when you shut down and remove the CD, no traces of the Linux OS will be left on your system and you can try running Windows again. Some say that Linux isn't a good diagnostics tool for Windows users, but then again, I use Ubuntu CD's for all diagnostics and recovery needs, as well as using it as a primary OS (but I use Windows XP a lot too).

 

[EricB]

Ubuntu Linux has MemTest86, a partition editor, a disk checker, and other utilities on one bootable CD. Download a copy, burn it to disc, and put it in the drive when you turn on your PC. You can then boot into it. From in there, you can access your hard drives in a graphic environment, copy folders to USB or other hard drives, and do other diagnostic tests. Then when you shut down and remove the CD, no traces of the Linux OS will be left on your system and you can try running Windows again. Some say that Linux isn't a good diagnostics tool for Windows users, but then again, I use Ubuntu CD's for all diagnostics and recovery needs, as well as using it as a primary OS (but I use Windows XP a lot too).

shiiipt. I use a linux bart pe cd (best of both worlds) for everything