FSPilot747 From United States of America, joined Oct 1999, 3599 posts, RR: 14 Posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 1106 times:
Well, I'm on my gf's laptop writing this because I cannot even turn on my laptop.
Last night, I opened a link that opened up a program that looked like it was installing even though I didn't click "yes" to download. I hit the on/off button on my computer, but it takes a few seconds for it to actually shut down. It shut down. Now when I try to turn it on, I get that blue screen that says "a problem has been detected and windows has to shut down yadda yadda" with some code below that. So it restarts itself but I get the same damn blue screen. So essentially, my computer is sitting her continuously restarting itself.
I can't open it in safe mode because when I choose that option, it starts listing all these files in DOS, some of them have .../System32../ in the file names. And it doesn't restart it.
Is there anything I can do to bypass that and get to my desktop?
FSPilot747 From United States of America, joined Oct 1999, 3599 posts, RR: 14 Reply 2, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 14 hours ago) and read 1084 times:
I can't start it in safemode. It just restarts again and I get the same blue screen again.
TedTAce From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 1072 times:
Quoting FSPilot747 (Thread starter): I choose that option, it starts listing all these files in DOS, some of them have .../System32../
ENTIRELY NORMAL
Quoting FSPilot747 (Reply 2): It just restarts again and I get the same blue screen again.
Disconnect everything you have any hard drives besides the boot drive, and extra vaudio or video card.
Get the system down to a boot drive power supply, motherboard ram and CPU (presuming you have onboard video) and see if it starts then. If it does, add a device at a time until it starts dying again.
FSPilot747 From United States of America, joined Oct 1999, 3599 posts, RR: 14 Reply 4, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 11 hours ago) and read 1067 times:
TedTAce, do you mean pull out my harddrive? What is a boot drive? It's a laptop, so i can just pull out my HD if that's what you mean for me to do.
David L From United Kingdom, joined May 1999, 9210 posts, RR: 42 Reply 6, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 11 hours ago) and read 1052 times:
Quoting TedTAce (Reply 3): Disconnect everything you have any hard drives besides the boot drive, and extra vaudio or video card.
Get the system down to a boot drive power supply, motherboard ram and CPU (presuming you have onboard video) and see if it starts then. If it does, add a device at a time until it starts dying again.
Good idea but not so easy to do with a laptop.
This sounds remarkably like something that happened to my dad's laptop.
If you're using XP, try restarting with the XP CD in the drive. If you get the option to repair Windows from that, go with it. My dad's laptop didn't get that far into the boot sequence and the hard drive was diagnosed as faulty, requiring a replacement.
Jamie757 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 1045 times:
Quoting FSPilot747 (Thread starter): I get that blue screen that says "a problem has been detected and windows has to shut down yadda yadda" with some code below that
When you say it has code beneath it, do you mean an error message? If so, jot it down and google it on the laptop that you're using at the minute. May shed some light on the situation.
Rolfen From Germany, joined Jan 2006, 1764 posts, RR: 2 Reply 8, posted (6 years 7 months 4 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 1031 times:
Throw it out of the window and get another one
Serioulsy now
First, try pressing F8 as soon as you pass the BIOS screen, and try the automatic restore option.
You may want to get some info by writing down the details of the error, then google it, google using the last part of the error message (the one that you cant understand), and also try googling for the error and your computer model, it may be specific to your laptop. Or google with the error and the program that you installed. Also try to limit your searches to microsoft knowledge base documents by using "site:microsoft.com" in the google search string.
If all fails you can try to enter safe mode and fix your system manually. You can also boot on a "live distro"... or also remove HD and plug it as a slave in another PC... and fix system manually. But manual fixing is probably above your skill level... find a geek near you
If that's not possible you may want to reinstall windows (by booting off the windows cd).
You do not need to format to reinstall the os. All you need is some free space, then you can choose to install it to another directory. Keep in mind that having 2 windows installation on the same partition is not supported by microsoft and will create some mess in the Program Files directory, with possible problems in internet explorer. But the system will most probably work long enough for you to retrieve your data, format the disk and reinstall everything from scratch.
You can avoid this "mess" by renaming the "Program files" directory.... you will then (usually) have a fully functional install.
Sponsor Message: 
From United States of America, joined Oct 1999, 3599 posts, 
From UK - Scotland, joined Sep 2001, 4985 posts, 
From Canada, joined Nov 2005, 1730 posts, 
From United Kingdom, joined May 1999, 9210 posts, 
From Germany, joined Jan 2006, 1764 posts, 
Printer friendly format 
