PCTech Forums

I had to use the 'Compaq Recovery' thing. Good thing it was there.

New problem though. Her computer won't boot up. I can select 'Windows recovery console' or 'windows XP Home' but either way, it won't start.

It's as if it hangs wile loading windows and yea... annoying :S

Try booting into Safe Mode. Tap on the F8 key until you see the Windows splash screen then select Safe Mode. Then go to Start-->Programs-->Accesorys-->System Tools-->System Restore

Select a day it worked correctly and do a roll-back.

While in safe mode, before you do the rollback, if you have saved something to the desktop that you want to recover, move it to My Documents. A lot of peope save stuff to the desktop and it will disapear on a rollback, if you chose a restore date earlier than when the item on the desktop was downloaded

Wouldnt even load safe mode. I tried to do the 'Compaq Restore' thing again, but it says that it can't copy like... 95% of the files. So I'm guessing that something went wrong with the d: drive aswell. Why would the whole system restore work one day, and not the next?

Would me using a non-compaq monitor (Daytek) have anything to do with it? Would the serial connection interfere with driver uploads?

Most likely you have only one hard drive that is partitioned into two drives.
It sounds like the hard drive might be going out, you can use Maxtor’s Power max to test the hard drive..
Go to and download Power Max.
Extract the file to a floppy and then boot from that floppy
Run the standard test and extended test but not the burn in test.

I ran the test. I ran the installation configuration one and it passed everything, and than I ran the 90 second test. It ran for about 130 seconds before I aborted it. Nothing came up at all.

I borrowed a WinXP cd from a friend, and sometimes after the 'Press any key to boot from CD...' dialog comes up, it will run the setup. However, most of the time it will read the cd, but it wont go into setup. The hard drive light is on during this time though.

I'm so confused.

Edit: Also, during the testing with the Power software, the HD light didn't come on during the whole time I let it run. Is that supposed to happen?

I took the case off. So far, Windows XP is installing and such. I pressed the power cable and all the cords firmly into the HD slot, thiking it might have been a lose connection. We'll see for sure though.

And you're right, it's one drive with 2 partitions. There is another bay for a second HD though.

I finished installing Windows XP. I turned off the computer, unplugged it, and plugged it back in and it worked. The case was off the whole time. Could this be due to a heat problem? Maybe it WAS a connection problem? Im going to hook it up to the internet in a second, I guess we'll see.

I'll post back with the results.

Well it seems to work. I replaced the casing and hooked it up. I'm on it right now and it's being good. The computer itself is slow though, but it was like that from the store. 112mb of Ram (128, 16mb being used for video card though, I think.) running Windows XP...

Here's the overall specs:

2.0ghz
128mb Ram
40gb HD - Partition 1: 33gb, Partition 2 (Recovery): 7gb.
Compaq Presario s0000 series.
Model number: S4020WM

Now I'm getting another error...

A little bubble comes up:

Windows* - Corrupt file
The file or direcotry C:\$MFT is corrupt and unreadable.
Please run the Chkdsk utility.

I ran check disk and nothing happned.

*This changes with each program I try to start. (For windows it seems to happen every minute or so.

It could be a low voltage or a heat issue. Check to make sure that the CPU fan has a good speed to it as well as any video card fan.

If those are ok, try swapping out the power supply.

Is there a program to test the voltage / heat?

The heat issue would be evident with a fan not moving or moving very slowly. Power supply fans lock up and become quite and still work pretty good for a while. They usually will start to emit a strong electrical odor.

The other issue of voltage with a power supply, is that it is erratic. your symptoms are clasic of a power supply going bad. The capacitors start to leak.

Sadly, it could also be capacitors on the Motherboard leaking also--yours seems like a new system so that shouldn't be an issue.

Also hooking up more than 4 USB items without a power assist usb port hub can draw a lot of current. Some of the new systems have power supplies that meet basic mininums for the system--they don't last long.

Test the system with a new power supply, and see if the problem goes away.