Son's PC Won't Bootup!

My son's PC, a 3 yr old Dell Dimension with Windows XP (Home Ed.) won't bootup, not even into safe mode!

The PC goes through it's initial startup/recognition sequence and then the screen goes blue with a message to the effect: "a serious problem has been detected and Windows has been shutdown in order to prevent damage to the computer". It then goes on to say that it could be due to insufficient disk space (this past April, his 30GB hard drive was only 50% full), or a bad video driver, or improper BIOS settings, etc. It then suggests starting up in safe mode (which I did, but the blue-screen with the same message comes back)!

The AntiVirus program (PC-cillin) has not been updated for the past 3-weeks, so I was wondering if this problem could be caused by a virus, and if so, what can I do about it if the system won't startup?

 

did you happen to make an emergency start up disc?

 

Hi BigC, thanks so much for replying... Yes, I remember making an emergency startup disk when I first bought the Dell for my son. I'm sure I have it, but even assuming that it boots up the system, I'm not sure what steps to take afterwards.

 

You might want to also post your message here:

Windows XP forum at Computing.net


Phil

 

If you can get it to boot you will want to look at your event viewer. Click start/control panel/performance and maintenance/administrative tools/eveny viewer. Look at any yellow or red exclamation marks and see if it will tell you what process is having the problem.