XP Home loops on boot

[Cowboybooter]

Packard Bell P4 Laptop, XP home ( OEM, not Retail - no option to repair! ),

Was 'apparently' working perfectly, nothing new installed, no internet access or anything!

The battery started to fail, XP has gone into a complete loop at startup! Same situation with new battery, the machine boots, goes to Options for;
Safe Mode,
Safe mode + Networking
Safe mode + cmd prompt
Last known good config
Start Wiindows normally.

Selecting any of these gives XP Home splash screen, then a BSOD flashes, too fast to read, and loop starts again!

The OEM recovery disk gives option to restore to factory settings, with total loss of data! The user, ( my Mum in law ) has about 3-4 hundred photo's, uploaded straight from cam, not saved anywhere else!

Are they toast? Any thoughts on breaking the loop?

:)

Bob

[mickwish]

Just a thought on salvaging the data: try Knoppix or another linux live CD, and see if you can resize the HDD partition and save the important data onto a new partition, then reinstall winXP. I've done this before for stuffed windows HDD's, and it works OK as long as the partition or the data itself isn't stuffed. :o

Might be able to do simliar with Partition Magic floppies, if you have them. You need a recent version if the FS is NTFS though. ;)

Cheers
Mick

[Cowboybooter]

Okay, Knoppix could be a good shot!

The box doesn't have a floppy drive, but boots from CD easily! I don't have PM though, although I could try and get it!

I was also wondering about buying a Retail XP Home, and trying a repair! Kinda depends upon how bad she wants the pics!:D

:)

Bob

<Edit: The lappie is still under warranty, so she's exploring that, in case the battery dying fried something!>

[davidw]

Not to sound negative or anything, but I didn't know Packard Bell was still around.

Sounds like an issue with some corrupted software or boot sector.