For the past 3 weeks, my computer has been on the fritz. At the beginning, at first when i tried to turn it on it said it could not start windows normally and gave me options such as run in safe mode, run with last best settings, etc etc or start windows normally. NOTHING worked. So then my brother got the bright idea for me to reformat it. I was just finishing up when my computer froze. A pop up appeared that said There is no disk in Drive A, please insert one. When i clicked on cancel, it froze. It has now done this several times, actually every time i try to use the computer. PLEASE any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated, i am computer challenged.

Have you tried scanning for viruses and stuff? Or booting in safe mode and scanning?

sounds like it could be a Virus , have u looked through google search on this problem?

I cant even get past the reformatting thing, it just comes up automatically when i turn on my computer so no i cant scan it. The last time i actually was using my computer succesfully i was in the middle of a virus scan when it shut off for no apparent reason

my hdd screwed in some way too and I couldn't get windows to properly start and we couldn't do much.. We didn't want to lose all our data by formating it so we end up getting another comp (the old one was getting old and was fucking up anyways) and we added the old hdd to this one after installing windows on that computer. You could always get another hdd, get windows on it, get an anti-virus, add the other hdd, scan it and try getting it to work somehow like i managed.. But if you don't want to spare a few bucks on another hdd, I really don't know how you could fix this

Try unplugging disk drive A... is it floppy or CD disk drive?... or is that just the main drive on your puter?... Our old computer had a problem with the floppy drive (which we called a), and when we took out the floppy all together it righted itself.

I'm a little confused - how did you format the drive? And what happens when you turn on the computer now? Do you get anything like the XP splash screen, or a nice blue screen or anything which says formatting/loading/starting etc

Edit: (You've managed to type on here - does that mean you have two computers? If this is the case and you still want to format it may be just as easy physically moving the drive to the other computer to format it (like wacky said). It's not too difficult if you're a little geeky)

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Originally posted by multimillion2k
It's not too difficult if you're a little geeky

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I hate to tell you, but craptacular isn't a real word.

Um, have you tried booting in safe mode since you tried formatting? If it doesn't freeze then perhaps you can use system restore and you may be able to get away with not formatting your computer.

This probably isn't any help but anyway...
My computer was getting slower and slower until it stopped working. When I tried to turn it on, it would get to the black screen with a few words and then restart. I couldn't fix it to I took it to someone I knew who could try and fix it. There was some clash between my graphics card and Windows SP2.
So yeah, it's all good now.
Hopefully you can fix your problem

i think the best thinf u can do is to transfer the hard-disk to the comp u are using now and then install windows on the crapped up hd....ask any frend or neighbour if u cant do it...or call a pro.

Another thing you might try (Assuming this is XP), is using the install disc, boot from it, and completely remove the partition with XP on it (that should remove everything, except for discarded file fragments which can't be removed without a special type of program). Then redo the partition with NTFS, format the drive, and reinstall. One other thing you might try is if you can get access to another computer with XP and the A Drive is your floppy disk, create a rescue disk on the other computer and use it.

Also, if you own a Norton 2002/2003/2004/2005 Product series disk, insert it into the CD-ROM Tray, boot up your computer and you can scan for viruses that way.  It wont have the most up-to-date definitions, but it can detect problems that may be causing it.  For example, if the virus came out in August 2004, you'd need Norton Product Series 2005 or greater to detect that threat.

Another option is available if you're an advanced user, you'd have to have a CD-BURNER and be able to copy your Norton disk to the computer though and manually update the virus definitions on it, its a pretty difficult process for non-expierienced computer user though.

You could try formatting in dos, that's what I do whenever I reformat. I beleive the command is 'format c:' (minus quotes)

That looks more like a hardware probe than a software one...

Maybe the PSU, HDD or RAM :/

i believe somethings wrong wid the A: drive(floppy i think)

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Originally posted by Ginger
I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMPUTERS. i can type.. thats about it.

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Originally posted by multimillion2k

quote:

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Originally posted by Ginger
I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMPUTERS. i can type.. thats about it.

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I think everyone scared Ginger away with the nerdy talk

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The problem to us is.. you need to give more details, non linear details ask your brother or something to explain what happens better otherwise we cant help.

OKAY so my brothers gf called Compaq for help and described what was happening. They told us to unplug everythin except the monitor, keyboard, and the mouse. BAsically unplug printers, scanners etc. So we did and then we tried to reformat it again and restore it to its setting from a previous date. The problem being that to do this, we must restart our computer. EVERYTIME we restart our computer, we get the same screen. A black with a grey box sayin compaq and software is being installed with moving bars. 2 seconds after this appears, the popup comes and says please insert a disk in drive A. Thats when it freezes. This happens EVERYTIME now matter how many different ways we tried to reformat, restore or fix the computer.

I think we're making progress! (a little)
One thing we never checked - what version of windows did you use?

This might make things a little easier - does your computer look kinda like this when you start the computer? Can you recognise kinda where it changes and then freezes?

I use windows XP

And when it first starts, it goes to my regular desktop. Its like a split second later that it goes to the screen where it says software is being installed blah blah and then the popup comes. But what ur showing looks like what i had at the beginning of the problem... before i tried to reformat it, when it said windows could not start normally please select x,y or z.

Did you try booting in safe mode again? To do this tap F8 on your keyboard when your computer gets to this stage.

Or just keep tapping F8 when you turn on the computer, it won't make it blow up or anything.

A screen should appear, similar to this one:

Select 'Safe Mode' and press Enter, then select 'Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition' and Enter again.

If you come up with a dialog box that says:
"Windows is running in Safe Mode. This special diagnostic mode of windows enables you to fix a problem..
..blah blah blah..
..To proceed to work in safe mode, click Yes. If you prefer to use system restore to restore your computer to a previous state, click No"
Then click Yes.

Let us know what happens.

Done that yesterday. The compaq guy told us to but once we were in safe mode, we were tryin to fix the problem by restorin the computer to an earlier date but to do that we had to restart. And the problem began all over again

Do you know where your startup folder is? Can you boot up in safe mode again and tell me what programs are listed there?

You can find it by clicking on the Start Menu -> (All) Programs -> Startup ->