Windows problem

[Link]

We left for a few days and shut our computer down. We usually leave it on all the time. For some reason now Windows won't load and comes up to a screen wanting to run Safe Mode or the last known good configuration or just the normal Windows boot up. It doesn't matter which option you choose, the computer just resets and comes up to the same screen again and again.... Any ideas on what to do? I figured we'd have to reload Windows XP.

[Redster]

If you try in safe mode, you should get a dos screen that shows the files being loaded. Does it stop on the same file every time ? Also,, try pulling the power plug for a couple of minutes to clear memory. You can also try pulling the cmos battery also, that should reset system completely back to defaults and clear any errors. Even if you had it turned off, you could have gotten a surge and corrupted something on the disk. Good Luck.

[DonLandis]

I've had this before and there should be an option to delete the recovery files. I selected that and after what seemed an unusual length of time with the hard drive working, Windows returned to normal. But you should also understand that most of my computers are run in a mission critical environment. That means I have daily backups on those and less than mission critical, I have weekly backups. On the daily backups, I do a complete hard drive imaging. What this means, is I can do those options knowing that if it really does fail, I have backups. If you operate without backups, then you are at extreme risk when you are in the current state you have of losing everything.

Be forewarned- and let this be a lesson to all. Computers require a level of backups depending on the criticality of your data.