I have a dell inspiron 4000 running windows xp pro with service pack 2.
When I press the start button it runs the bios meter which goes to full. The screen then goes black. There is a whirring sound as it trys to read the cd rom which is empty then it sparks back up to the bios page. The meter runs its course then the screen goes black and the whole process starts again. I've tried starting in safe mode (via f8) but the same thing happens. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
Kram Yeria
x

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic55208.html

Thanks Tedster...

but sadly something else seems to be the problem. It's getting power but the whole startup seems to be on a loop. I tried taking out the battery and starting it from the mains but it was exactly the same. I even took out the cd rom. With both of those out the machine is a little lighter which, I suppose is a good thing for a portable lol. It feels as though it wants to start but just doesn't have the drive, if you'll excuse the pun. Anyway, thanks for your imput, I do appreciate it.
Kram
x

I suspect your boot sector on the hard drive is corrupt.
reformat and reinstall. You may be able to retrieve important data before formatting by using the drive externally.

Cracked it!

I put winxp in the cdrom and it started up. Gave me the option to repair which I accepted and it reinstalled the os. Now everything is tickety boo.
Thanks again for the input.
Kram
x