Going Round In Circles

OK,...I have a HP Pavilion 7955 I got for my daughter used,..it worked fine,..I'm running Windows XP,..and I always leave it on,..well one day after a bad storm, I came home from work and noticed the Pavilion was off. So I go to boot it up, and it keeps trying to boot up, but continues to do that over and over again. It was on a surge protector and I had to replace the power supply,..don't know if that was already time to burn-out. There may be a tutorial already posted,..I couldn't find one. Thanks all in advance.

Tutorial for what? Sorry - what's the question - replacing the power supply or booting?

How far does the system get when trying to boot?

It goes to the Windows XP screen,..the one that has the blue dots going left to right,...then act like its gonna start-up and goes back to the XP screen,..I already replaced the power supply.

Can you boot to safe mode?

I'm guessing that in the end you're probably going to end up doing a repair install if you have an XP CD.

cannot go into safe mode,..I can get to the prompt screen, and it seems like it's gonna go, but reverts back to the XP screen.

would this help in this situation?
(i know its aimed at a different problem)

1. Insert your XP installation disk into an optical drive and boot up your computer.
2. When you see a welcome screen, hit the R key on your keyboard. This will enter you into recovery mode with a DOS prompt.
3. Now type chkdsk /p and hit Enter. This will launch a utility which will check for errors on your hard drive.
4. After the process is done, type fixboot and hit Enter to repair any damaged boot files which may have become corrupted. When asked to say yes or no, type the Y key on your keyboard.
5. Type exit and press the Enter key to reboot your computer.

If all went well, you should now be able to boot back into Windows without a problem!

from http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2605/fixing_the_dreaded_unmountable_boot_volume_error/

also, dont try this until someone more knowledgeable than me says if this is the right way to help or not

Edited by scoped, 15 February 2011 - 07:28 PM.

I tried that,...Maybe hard drive fried?...it does all the beeps and loads to the XP screen,..but when it leaves the XP screen,..it doesn't load any programs.

when you say it can't go into safe mode, are you pressing f8 after boot,
and then see the option for safe mode? this is before you see the windows
screen with the statusbar.

Yes,..correct,...I mean it seems like it's gonna boot up...but reverts back to the XP screen. And if you leave it alone,..it keeps doing the same thing over and over again.

When run from the recovery console the best command is chkdsk /r - which you might want to go ahead and run.

Following that, I'd go with a repair install at this point. Boot to the XP CD and choose the SECOND repair option (allow XP to do a repair install). After the installation you will have to go to Windows Update and reinstall all updates.

Edited by Allan, 16 February 2011 - 04:02 PM.

thought i'd add that you should get more ram, a much bigger harddrive, and an agp graphics card (with updated drivers, and a color correction utility program that may come with the drivers), and if you're using ethernet, a network pci plugin card.
i don't know what you've already done with it, but it's much like my computer, and in the long run she'll be happier. here are the specs

Edited by cogs10, 16 February 2011 - 10:18 AM.

Do you have access to a genuine XP cd?
Maybe you can borrow one from someone temporarily.
A branded recovery cd will not work.

If so boot to the recovery console.
From the c:\windows> prompt type these three commands and hit enter after each line

bootcfg /rebuild
fixmbr
fixboot

Take the cd out & see if it will boot then.

I'm waiting for my neighbor to return my XP cd,...I'll try what you explained,..thanks,...