Windows could not start because of an error in the software.

To start off, I'd like to thank anyone that spent the time to read this, for spending your time to help me.

Last night as I was searching through google, I won't tell you what I was searching, it's not related, but a general idea of what I was searching is "Music". Back on track, I found myself seeing a site called "Filetube" I believe. After contacting a friend, about how safe that site is. I was told it was a safe site. However as soon as I clicked on the link and the page loaded, a pop up said that a program wanted to run on my computer. I can't remember exactly what the program was called, but if you use your imagination and think of several words someone would use to search up porn, then combined them all together without using spaces, you'd probably get pretty close.

Fearing it might be a virus, I closed it as soon as possible, but a second after I did, I got a blue screen. I know this was stupid of me, but I turned off my computer without fully reading what the blue screen said, worried of further infection to my computer. I do believe it was one line, saying something about "The Computer has to shut down due to some error" or something around those lines.

The next afternoon I tried turning on my computer. When I tried it would give me a message saying this exactly;
"Windows could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem."

I tried restarting my computer of course it'd give me the same results. I can't boot up my computer either in safe mode, pressing F8 didn't do anything. I couldn't get to the screen to choose how to boot up. I'd perfer if I could fix this problem without having to reformat my computer, there's alot of data on this computer I'd perfer not to lose.

I just lost my train of thought around here, so I'll leave it at this, I'm believe there isn't any important details about my problem I left out.

I use Windows XP Service Pack 3. I tried doing some research about this problem, but I didn't get very far. In addition, with my previous experiences with search sites, I rather not do too much searching.

If you have any kind of theory of my problem, then I'd perfer if you posted it on here, I'm using my laptop to type this up right now, and I have limited time to look for a reply, for I won't have this laptop anymore starting tomorrow morning. If you have a solution, then I'd perfer if you posted it in step by step instructions, my knowledge about computers is there, but limited. If this has been asked before, and resolved then I apologize for asking it again. To top it all off, if there's information you request about my computer or some other information, then you can ask, and I'll do my best to provide you with it.

It would help if you posted the make and model of this computer.

If this is a custom build, do you have the retail installation CD for your copy of XP?

Thank you for trying to help, as for my model, it's a Dell Dimension 8400.

On the rear of your computer there a four lights, going from left to right We will call these A, B, C, D. When you turn on the computer what color are these lights looking left to right?

When I start up my computer, the letters which from left to right are ABCD, as you probably already know.

The lights come in two colors with my computer, either green or orange.

At first, the very moment you press the button to start up the computer,
C and D, are in orange while A and B are in green.
But the colors switch quickly, and settle for a little while but this time
A and B are in orange while C and D are in green.
The colors go through another swap session, and...
You get A and D as orange and B and C are green.
Through one more swap session, the colors then again settle at,
All colors are green except D,
After that, all the letters end at green.
Swapping between colors doesn't take more then a second, and this whole process probably shouldn't take more then 20 seconds starting from when I turned on my computer.

That error indicates that the computer is trying to boot from a device other than your hdd. I suspect that what is really happening is the the Boot initiation file is damaged and needs to be rebuilt.

Do know anyone that has a retail copy of a XP installation CD? This will need to be the same version as your own,eg. Home or Pro.

Currently, I do have access to a XP installation CD, however seeing how i never used it before. I'm a bit confused about what to do with it. I tried going to the recovery console.. or at least what I think was the recovery console, but past that, I Was a bit confused of what to next, and I didn't have a desire to test functions that may mess up my computer even more.

I think I Fixed it... following this process
CHKDSK (which will fix the error(s) on your disk)
BOOTCFG /rebuild (you will rebuild your boot configuration now, just give enters when it asked extra info).
FIXBOOT (to fix your current bootsector)
FIXMBR (to fix your current master boot record).
EXIT (leaves the recovery console and reboots your system

Edited by Martia, 29 December 2010 - 07:39 PM.

That is what needed to be accomplished and why I had asked about the installation CD.

Congratulations.