Startup Issue

Hey guys, I have a bit of an issue with a Toshiba Laptop I'm dealing with (for a friend) and I was wondering if I could get any advice on what to do?

Basically, you can't start up the machine past the Windows XP loading OS screen. I don't know what they did but it seems as if an essential system file has been deleted or corrupted because every time you try to start it up, the machine just shows a Blue Screen (BSOD), and the same thing happens if you try and start up in Safe mode. It's impossible to get a code from the BSOD as the laptop restarts itself after showing the message for 1 second, and the cycle restarts. I don't believe she has any recovery discs for the machine either, but I have a copy of Windows XP Home lying around somewhere if need be.

Any suggestions on what I can do, as the only thing I can think to do is reinstall Windows (I can imagine will also be a problem). Anything? I can get specs if needed.

pop in your xp cd and do a repair http://www.klitetools.com/MM/xprepair. this should repair your xp while keeping all her stuff intact

Don't worry I'm not an idiot...

And thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot. That link is pretty damn good and easy to understand too so shouldn't be any real work in it.

My idiot comment was supposed to be a sarcastic joke...

But yeah I know what you mean with the level of experience thing, I'm computer literate but everyone else I know struggle to open Word...

But again thanks for the info guys, I just need to go get her laptop tomorrow morning and sort it out.

Alright I've got the machine to hand here and I followed the instructions in the tutorial but I really think this machine isn't going back to its original state, as I'm in XP Setup ready to recover the C partition but it says:

Partition1 [Unknown] 38146MB Free
Unpartitioned Space 8MB Free

It doesn't even recognise Windows is there anymore. I tried using Recovery Console but the only option it gives me is Exit. I tried booting into Partition1 anyway but no luck. Any thoughts/advice?

After typing fixmbr it's given me this huge warning that it might damage all the partition tables on the drive due to a non-standard or invalid master boot record. The question it's now asked is if I want to write a new MBR? Not knowing what that is, I thought I should ask.

I entered 'fixmbr Partition1' stating the partition and this time it did it without any page long warnings, I checked Microsoft's site for it and it does say you have to state the partition. With fixboot it's asking if I want to write a new bootsector for the C Partition. No threats of corrupting partitions so before I type Y, I want to make sure thats the right thing to do.

Lol, alright. Better to be safe than sorry.

No luck, still has an unknown partition but the partition itself is empty which I didn't notice before but it was like that when I booted this up before. Looks like I am going to have to reinstall Windows completly, but should I do this on:

C: Partition1 [Unknown] 38146 MB (38146 MB Free)

Or delete and recreate a new partition?