Have managed to cause utter mayhem

[tokyo-joe]

I just decided on what seemed like the going advice here that a sygate firewall was a good idea to run with AVG. Anyway after downloading it but before running it, perhaps foolishly, I turned off the Windows firewall and, without disconnecting from the internet, seconds - literally - later my laptop went phut.

I tried to restart but all it says is -

No bootable CD in ATAPI CD-ROM

NTLDR is missing

Press CTRL+ALT+DLT to continue

- but all it does it squeak, show the Packard Bell screen briefly before giving me the same information.

Would greatly appreciate some help here. Have tried F8 thinking I could system restore in safe mode but it didn't seem to come up on the screen - well, something came up but safe mode wasn't one of them!

Your help is, as always, massively appreciated.

Joe

 

[The_Maestro]

What

When you say something came up, what was it that came up?

 

[tokyo-joe]

Thanks for replying - when I press F8 there's a small blue screen with:

Boot device

( ) Hard Disk C
( ) CD-ROM/DVD
(.) Floppy Disk Drive
( ) LAN Boot

- which I can scroll up and down and press return but it doesn't do anything.

Then, bottom left there is:

(enter) Execute item
( up / down arrows) select item
(space) Toggle item

THe last ones I don't appear to be able to get at with no cursor.

Does this make any sense??

Ta very much

Joe

 

[patio]

Move it up to HDD with the + key and then press F10 ...this saves the info and re-starts the machine.

patio.

 

[tokyo-joe]

Sorry, that doesn't work. The + doesn't move - only the cursor. When I put it to Hard Disk C the F10 button doesn't respond. Am I doing it wrong?

 

[The_Maestro]

was your drive in NTFS or Fat32? What operating system did you have on your PC before it died?

 

[tokyo-joe]

NTFS and FAT32 I'm afraid are only vague terms for me - but it was a bog standard Packard Bell laptop with Windows XP SP2 + not had many problems with it. It did slow down and crash recently but I thought I'd solved all that by uninstalling System Mechanic's Pro 6 behemoth which caused all those probs. Having done that it was working perfectly well with AVG. Before crashing obviously.

 

[The_Maestro]

have you tried booting off the windows xp disk and running a repair installation. When you run through the all the checks you get to a screen where you have the option to press "r" to repair windows. That will delete most system files and re-install them.

 

[tokyo-joe]

Hey Maestro,

Nope I haven't but just checking what I've got I have works suite 2002, something called windows magic install, and the back up master CDs. From what i can gather they should only be used as a last resort as I think they'll take me back to year zero and wipe out tonnes of stuff, a small part of which wasn't saved...

Would Microsoft allow me to download a repair CD i wonder...?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

You could borrow anybody's XP CD and burn a copy for yourself. Make sure it has SP2 slipstreamed into it (and it is the same XP-version you have now (Home or Pro)).
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
You'll still need your own CD-key though.

Then follow the Read: How to repair... in the Windows forum.
If you do it correctly, you won't lose any data.