BellaOnline Forums Computers Computer - Console Gaming Help Booting problems

(I posted this on PC Advice, but the crickets are really loud there and tumbleweeds are rolling across the landscape, so I thought maybe someone here could help me out):

I have a Compaq Presario 5010US and am running Windows ME. The computer is a few years old and I have not had ANY problems with it until lately. When I boot up in the morning, it hangs on the Compaq logo screen. I reboot. Then I get a Windows Protection please reboot screen. I reboot. Then it hangs with just the cursor in the top left corner of the screen. Then I reboot. Only after that does it finally get to my main screen. It doesn't matter if I'm booting in normal or safe mode. I've even reloaded the software to original manufacturers configurations and it still does it. I have no third party hardware installed. Is my hard drive crashing? Any ideas on what I can check next? I tried a registry cleaner and it came up with nothing. Scandisk shows no problems.

Thanks!

Marian

Hello Marian <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I have never had this problem before, but the best thing I can say is use: the startup disk and select Safe Mode then use Safe reboot

and do you have an anti Virus on your computer?

well seems like you computer is a little busted, I don't know if you have valuable stuff on your hard drive, but you can try this:

start the computer, and press F8 (I thought it was F8 <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> ) to start in DOS mode.
then format all your hard drives and re-install windows.

but if you got valuable stuff on it it might be a bit of a pain to get those of first you can try to put it on disks or sumting but it might be to big