Safe mode booting up and...

[missing link]

...keeps repeating.
Hello all,I'm Paul here in sunny Manchester. I am not hugely computer savvy,but fascinated with the technology,especially vehicle mapping.
Anyway,I've acquired a non-branded tower and fails to boot up correctly. It's operating on XP,and when it starts up,it goes into safe mode option. When I click on 'safe mode in networking' or command prompt,nothing happens,just reboots back to the safe mode. I'd be most thankful of any advise,thanks

 

[johnb35]

Find out what brand of hard drive is in it and download the drive diagnostic for it, create the bootable cd and boot to it and run the extended test. What brand of hard drive is it?

Does actually boot into safe mode or just give you the safe mode options?

 

[cobrahead]

i think mate you have a corrupt OS,have it reprogram or either send it to IT tech.

regards

 

[missing link]

thankyou both for your replies

What brand of hard drive is it?

it's a deskstar John

Does actually boot into safe mode or just give you the safe mode options?

Unable to boot in safe mode,just the safe mode options. If I scroll up to 'with networking' and click on it,no response,and continues with 'start windows normally' and then reverts back to the checking ide drives. I had another go but constantly pressing f10 and froze the 'start windows normally' countdown. Then I scrolled up to last known good configuration,pressed enter,and the result is WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM. This now requires a needed cd to enter the recovery console,which I don't have. I'm going to try a repair cd off ebay,and see from there.

 

[johnb35]

Download the cd image of the drive image test on this page and use burning software that will write image files to cd and then boot to the cd and perform a full scan on the drive. It should repair the errors and then allow you to boot into windows.

http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/

 

[missing link]

thanks John,but I'm struggling to understand your advise. So,the cd image I should download would be from the Drive fitness test or the Feature tool from the hitachigst?
Just to add,in order for me to access the internet,I'm using a 1992 Dell Latitude M233ST running on XP,rather slow but not too chronic. Also,I've come to learn that the CD-ROM drive is defective as it spins up and down and eventually stops not recognising the media. So I'm going to need a new one. Thanks

 

[johnb35]

You need the drive fitness test. If the cdrom on the laptop is broken then go to a friends house that has computer that you can burn the cd.

 

[missing link]

You need the drive fitness test. If the cdrom on the laptop is broken then go to a friends house that has computer that you can burn the cd.

superb,thanks ever so much John:good: