Q: back on, the windows logo came on for 3 seconds, then there was a flash of a blue screen with text on for 1 second then it restarted again to do the same thing, i got to read some of the text though (def. not BSOD) on the first line it says select_volume then around the middle it says memory i have bought a caddy for it so we can exchange the files to the laptop then i will re-install windows, i believe the installation is corrupt. it is impossible to read the rest of the text though. would i be right in saying the installation is messed up or is it something else. i'm gonna get the video camera out to try and read the text, i will post it if i can thanks in advanced and sorry for the jumbled question caddy due friday
A: You've done well to grab what you could of the error messages. For 4 years, assuming it's XP. You were not doing anything to mess up the installation, so it should be ok. Memory could be a problem with the RAM, either loose or fried. It is more likely OUT of memory, either because the hard drive is very full, or the pagefile system has grown too big. Try to start it up again, and keep tapping the F8 function key, to get it into Safe Mode. I'm not on XP right now so I can't tell you step by step, but what you need to do is get into system manager, find where it says what to do in the event of a serious error, and turn off all 3 options. One of these is rebooting. So it will leave up the messages long enough to read them. If the message then turns out to be something to DO, like turn on volume, you can do it. Or if it's a missing file, you can restore that manually. Otherwise, you can restore to a known good configuration. It it is the pagefile (swap file) you need go to virtual memory management, choose to mnage it yourself, and put a small number (50 Mb would do) into both the size boxes. This will kill the probably huge current file, to let it grow again as needed, so it doesn't think it's "run out" of it. If all this fails you can do a reinstall. Don't format the hard drive, you can install a new copy of Windows on top of the existing one. This keeps your other files and your Registry intact.