PC Memoirs

Almost every PC user I know had this problem at some stage: a computer that freezes. I bet you’ve seen it too: you are surfing the Web, writing a document or playing a game, when suddenly everything stops and you can’t do anything with your PC. It doesn’t respond to input from your mouse or keyboard. The screen shows the last working picture and it [...]

After you install Service Pack 3, sometimes Windows XP won’t load. All you can see is a blank screen.
Unfortunately, you have to uninstall SP3 to resolve this problem. To do this, you must restart the system and boot into Safe Mode (press and hold F8 after the restart until you see the new menu).
Once you are in [...]

Sometimes you have to repair the Windows XP installation because system files required to run the operating system have been either deleted or corrupted, or a virus has contaminated your hard drive. Another reason why you might have to do this is when you replace a component in your PC, such as the motherboard. When you install [...]

After the POST (power on self test) screen, Windows does not load and the following message is displayed: “ntldr is missing”. This means that one or two essential system files are either corrupt or have been deleted: ntldr and/or ntdetect.com. Without these files, Windows cannot operate. This message is usually associated with Windows XP.
To fix [...]

If you are unable to load Windows, it is useful to know how you can still access your files and copy them to a safe location. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll assume that Safe Mode does not work and the only way to access your documents is through the Recovery Console. You can [...]