PC does not start at all

[mach04]

I have a problem with a stationer PC running XP Home on an Intel Celeron. I decided to uninstall Avast antivirus as Avast was slowing down the pc, as it frequently runs a scan and slows down the pc (using an uninstaller I downloaded from Avast and removed it in safe mode), and instead installed MS Security Essentials after returning to normal mode. It was working well until I closed it, and after an hour turning it on it started to give problems trying to enter Normal mode as it did.

When turning it on, it stucks at a black boot screen waiting to choose whether to start in Normal mode or in Safe mode (with or without network connection), plus the possibility to choose a Recovery mode.
What ever I choose, it restarts and returns back to the same boot screen asking me to choose a mode to enter.

I even changed to start booting from CD drive by entering the BIOS section, but it only lets me to reinstall or repair XP, and does not start the PC with help of the CD. I decided to choose to repair the XP, but after waiting a long time it didn't show any results, so I decided to give it up and closed the PC.

I hardly want to format and reinstall XP, as there are some files I haven't backed up. Is there any way I can force the system to start??

Thanks for any helps.

 

[vacunita]

After pressing "R" for a repairment of XP installation it just remains in a blue screen.
The Recovery console does not start at all, pc just restarts and brings it back to the black screen asking to choose which mode to enter.

that is the R as shown in the link you provided I use to perform a repair install. After pressing R it goes to another page where nothing is shown and it just keeps there until I turn off and turn on the pc again.

I even tried to perform a new installation by pressing Enter, but it just got stuck in the next screen without showing anything.

I agree with rclarke:
This sounds to me like the HDD is the culprit. It kills the Installation when it tried to read from it to asses partitions and installations currently on disk.

Give a Linux Live CD a try. See it will mount the HD for you to access. At least that way you may be able to get data off of it without needing a secondary PC.






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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

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