Computer fried?

I had a lot of power surges yesterday and i unplugged my computer after the 3rd? time it restarted because of the power surges. But today when i tried to start it up again it goes to this black screen that says “We apologize for the inconvience but Windows cannot start up” and it gives me choices to start in either “Safe mode, Safe mode with networking, Safe mode with command prompt, Last good windows setting, or Start windows normally”. No matter which option i choose it goes to the Windows loading screen (with XP logo and loading bar at bottom) but then the computer restarts and it goes back to the black screen with the “apology”. Anyone know whats going on or how to fix it??

send it to me… if your data is at all recoerable, I will get your data back.

well if the startup drive is fried, theres not really much on there that i can’t replace, just a bunch of eng. programs and a few games. Its the 2nd harddrive that i’m worried about being destroyed, that one has all my personal pics and home movies that i would hate to lose. What are the chances that both drives are shot, i’m going to try unplugging the 2nd drive and reinstalling windows when i get out of work today unless someone has any other suggestions. I’m praying that 2nd drive isn’t fried also.

here is the deal

the more you mess with that drive. the less likely hood of it working

if you are at all serious about getting data from that drive, send it to a professional, send it to me

PM sent

i’d like to have someone from this board look at it rather than taking it to a minimum wage 17 y/o at circuit city, but the problem is i don’t live in buffalo anymore and i can’t be without this computer for weeks to ship it to someone, i use it for work as well as personal use.

woah woah woah before you go tearing away at the innards there are several options available to you (providing you have an xp install disc).

1.) Put the cd in the drive and boot to it, this may require you changing the boot order in your BIOS. Agree to the EULA then proceed to the installation portion of the disc. Usually you press F8 for the agreement and ENTER to proceed to the installation portion of the disc.

You will be trying for a repair install of xp, this is not the same as the recovery console, so don’t “press R to repair your installation using the Recovery Console”.
(you’ll see what I mean when you get there) Once at the installation screen of XP, there MAY be an option to “repair your installation of XP” or something along those lines.

I say MAY because if your installation is corrupt enough, the disc wont recognize it and wont give you the repair option. This repair installation is going to copy over all the core files for XP, the only things that may be lost are your My Documents folders. Nothing else should be touched.

Much better explanation and instructions here:

Try this before you go tearing up your machine, there are other options but this post is getting on to novel size.

Good luck

thanks, thats what i was looking for. Something to try before i have to send it to a professional.

my professional opinion.

dont mess with it.

inbeforeyoulookatitandyouhadonechancetopulldataandnowthedriveistoast

recovery console … checkdsk /r

Him snd Baldy are right. Dont take some stupid risk, and lose everything. Do you need BuickGN to step in and tell you this too? You already have the two top drive and data specialists on the board telling you what to do!

unplug the 2nd drive…

then do the recovery console > checkdsk /r

he already stated there’s nothing important on the primary drive…
he’s most likely getting a BSOD of unmountable boot volume.

boot up from an xp cd.(if you dont see the recovery console option as your computer turns on) and tell it you want to repair.