whats up. Ok so I'm trying to fix my friend's mother's computer, and it's all sorts of screwed up. Windows will not launch at all and at this point, I really just want to reformat it. There's the problem though. I can't figure out how to boot from the cd or even open a command prompt. It just gives me the error string on system 32 , then tells me to type R to repair from cd...when I do that, it just reloads the same screen. I can get into a setup screen, but I can't find anything useful there. Please help, somebody!

pleeeeeeeeeeease somebody has to know a solution. I've checked tons of threads and while some are related, all the ones I've read involve the poster trying to avoid reformatting and recover files. I would imagine that doing a reformat would be that much easier to explain. Again, all I need help with is getting an option TO reformat, or an instruction as to how to bring up a command prompt or load from the cd. It appears that nothing is available aside from the setup screen. Even if you have any suggestions at all, I would appreciate it alot!

Nothin? can someone at least redirect me to where I could find a solution? I hate to sound like an annoying broken record, but I'm really desperate and after browsing through these forums, it seems like if anyone can help me at all, it's one of you guys. Thanks either way

Dude, calm down. Some people don't have the knowledge to help you and others aren't able to check the boards everyday. FYI, people will post when they can; you don't have to keep asking the same day because it won't help you. I, for one, haven't seen this thread until today. Though I try to login every few days, I haven't been able to between work and school.

Now, to your problem. What version of Windows is it? Have you tried booting into a DOS prompt and formatting from there? Have you tried making a boot floppy? (I know you can boot to CD but the boot floppy sometimes works better, for some reason). Can you get into Safe Mode?

If you can't get it to work, you might want to try a Linux CD (maybe a LiveCD like Knoppix) and use that to reformat the drive.

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Sorry, I didnt mean to piss anyone off. I just saw that many people had viewed the thread but hadnt posted anything and I got worried . Anyway the windows version is xp, and i cannot boot from cd. I havent tried to boot from floppy yet because I dont have any, but that is the next thing im going to try. Before now, all of my reformatting had taken place while windows was still intact, so Im still learning. Again, I apologize..thank you for replying

If you can't boot from CD it's probably because you need to get into SETUP and adjust the boot sequence so that it looks for a boot record on the CD before it looks anywhere else (like the hard disk).