I hope someone out there can help me because – to give you an idea of my frustration level -- I’m about ready to set fire to my computer and then grind the smouldering ashes into dust with a lump hammer, as I foam at the mouth babbling expletives.

Here’s the problem: At some point my computer crashed and I had to turn it off using the switch at the back of the box. When I turned it back on check disk (chkdsk) automatically started up with a message saying something along the lines of ‘it’s highly recommended you run this’. So I did and it started up then stopped and remained stopped, frozen, until I eventually gave up and turned the computer off at the back again.

This process repeated itself (chkdsk freezing, and always at a different point) and does so every time I turn the computer on – the only way round it is to take up the ‘hit any key in 10 seconds’ option to bypass the check disk. I don’t like doing this though because if there is something wrong with my harddrive, or just needs some file repairs, I want to sort it out, not ignore it.

I browsed the net for solutions but I can’t seem to find a way of running check disk once I’m into windows. If I go to ‘run’ in the start menu and input the ‘chkdsk’ command (with or without the /f parameter or any thing else; I’ve tried them all) I always get the same message about the ‘volume being in use’ and ‘do I want to set it to go on restart’. This puts me back to square one because check disk always freezes on restart.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the harddrive because I’ve checked it with HD Tune and it said it was fine. So maybe I should turn off chkdsk but I’m buggered if I know how too. I’m running windows XP (see details below) but don’t have the installation CD because it was installed with the computer – so I can’t boot from the CD and use the repair console (as someone suggested).

Oh, and to add to my joys, safe mode doesn’t work either – I get a screen full of text when I try to boot it up – something to do with drivers I think.

All in all I’m sick to my back teeth with this machine and hope someone out there can help me before I reduce it to chips.

System details:
Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition
Service Pack 3
Tiny Computers
Intel®
Pentium® 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2.99 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM

You should be able to borrow a Windows XP Home CD to boot from.

Grumpy

Did you have this problem before installing SP3?


Heres one possibility

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q316506/

If you didn't have this problem before installing SP3, it may be to your advantage to uninstall SP3 but do it in Safe Mode, then see if the problem goes away.

You can always reinstall SP3 at any time, I personally had problems with SP3 and in my case ended up doing a Repair installation of XP back to SP2, which I am presently still running problem free.

Sorry my bad! I missed that statement!

Sometimes as long as you have a legal XP license sticker on your computer you can take it to a local computer shop, or if the sticker is on a side panel take that, show the sticker to them proving its existence, and ask them to burn you an XP Home installation CD, I've done that many times in the past, and usually only paid about 5 bucks for their time and burning media, because the monetary aspect is actually the license, you have every right to a legal installation copy and should have one in your possession.