my father in law has a dell computer with XP.  God only knows what he
did but all the computer does not is keep rebooting whenever it gets
to the "Welcome" screen.  I've tried using entering in safe mode -
only got blank screen, rebooting from boot disc and about a hundred
other things and all that keeps happening is the reboot process
everytime it gets to the "Welcome" screen.  I can't get to a command
prompt or any other thing to try any diagnostics?  Any help out there?

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 15 Jan 2006 16:08 PST

rashad...

Sorry to hear about this. I've been there with Windows 2000,
and I don't think I ever got it working. One cause for such
a dilemma is when your swap file gets deleted or corrupted.

If I did get it fixed, it was by making that disk a slave
to a disk that worked, and making some changes, like to 
the swap file, but as I say, I'm not sure I actually succeeded.

sublime1-ga

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Clarification of Question by rashad-ga on 15 Jan 2006 20:02 PST

I think all that is left of the XP OS is the POST or boot section of
the hard drive.  I've managed to get into some areas to see what was
left and there was not a lot of files there.  Also when I got into
restarting is Safe Mode, and choosing different options, nothing
happened not could I ever get anywhere.  I think it is time to tell
the father in law to go buy a new XP OS since the original came from
Dell and they never supply you with the complete OS CD anyway.

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Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 16 Jan 2006 13:46 PST

Hi,

Have you tried repairing the Windows XP installation?
You might lose some settings.

Perform a Repair Installation
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

Please let me know if this helps.

Failing that, it could be something broken or lose inside the PC.

Thanks.
endo

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Clarification of Question by rashad-ga on 16 Jan 2006 17:31 PST

OK guys I really appreciate all the great comments and advice.  I
don't think the stupid thing is performing the POST the way it should.
 I don't hear it check the A:\ drive and it won't read from the CD
drive when I put any OS CD into the drive.  Am I looking at a fried
motherboard since it won't execute the POST.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 16 Jan 2006 18:29 PST

rashad...

POST is a function of the BIOS chip on the motherboard,
and has nothing to do with Windows XP, but you seemed
to say you had gotten into the options page (F8) where
you could choose Safe Mode. Even if nothing happened
after that, you were past the POST phase.

Can you get into the BIOS? F2 is a common entry method.
If the BIOS is bad, you might be able to flash it or
replace the battery that keeps it intact.

Let me know where this takes you...

sublime1-ga

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Clarification of Question by rashad-ga on 16 Jan 2006 19:09 PST

I wish I could do that but without the OS running the POST to check
the drives, the computer won't even recognize when there is a disc or
CD in the computer.  I think it is time to make this sucker into a
boat anchor.

It may be a hardware error? Windows sometimes bugs out if the
processor gets too hot or it cant read or can only partially get
signal from some of the hardware.

The first step is checking to make sure everything is well connected
just by making sure the wires and cards are properly connected to the
sockets. It is a common problem that they just get accidentally
unclipped or loosened from their pots.



You can always try linux. Mandrake is especially like windows and
contains office applications and perfect internet functionality. Its
free. Might as well try it if you have to delete everything anyway.

You can do a interest search on this and find the information.  What I
found is that a file is mising or corrupted.  This situation is common
for XP.  What I did was back up all my infomation - I have an external
HD and then reformatted the HD using the XP reformat feature which
required the recovery disks I had made when I first got the computer. 
I was able to access my files via windows safe mode.

Or it is possible you have a unstable motherboard.

The last time I encountered this type of situation on a Windows XP
box, I had to completely reinstall Windows to get the system back up
and running.

      -welte-ga

I'd agree that you likely need to reinstall Windows. However, nobody
seems to have mntioned an obvious point - your BIOS may not be
configured to check the A: drive and CD drives on booting, if it's
been optimised for a fast boot; you should be able to change this
setting so that you can try booting from CD and hopefully be able to
go from there.

As rashad mentioned, F2 will often take you into the BIOS; sometimes
Del is the appropriate key; sometimes it's another combination.
Usually the appropriate combination is displayed, perhaps only
briefly, at the very beginning of the boot process.

In any event, try to get into the BIOS setup. Not only will this
enable you to set your computer to boot from CD (or floppy, or
possibly from other sources like a USB drive), but you should also be
able to set the BIOS to do a more complete POST which may pick up
hardware problems that are currently being missed.

Have you tried running Chkdsk from the Recovery Console ? 

In case windows is having a problem with the file/directory structure,
fixing this with chkdsk /f  will take care of the problem. You can do
this by booting up from the XP bootable CD

The following steps may be helpful to reach the recovery console

First make the system bootable from the CD drive by changing the boot
drive option in the BIOS

When you come to the screen that asks you to install Windows, DONT't! 
Choose R for recover, this will take you to the Recovery Console. 
YOu will see the following 
1: C:\WINDOWS 
Press 1, to reach the command Prompt. Here type Chkdsk /f  windows
will check the hard disk for errors. and fix any errors in the file
system/file area.

Type exit to restart the system.

Hope this is of help.