My computer locks up and won't boot. What do I do?

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Thought this might help someone.
I just had an error where the computer wouldn't boot at all. It would power up and passed POST but the monitor wouldn't display anything. I thought it was a video card issue, turned out to be a bad RAM stick. Put in a new stick and it works fine now.

My mums computer now without any provocation is asking for a boot disk, i used my computer to make one but theres a I/O error or something like that. Theres also a horrible noise coming from what i think is the heard drive, it's a mixture between a click and a scrape and the speaker on the base unit of the case is beeping everytime it scrapes.

Help, she won't stop using my computer...

Sounds like a hard disk failure or some other hardware related issue. I'd take it to a technician for repair.

I had the problem when i started windows the screen went blank after the windows logo screen.I tried everything windows recovery (did'nt work computer hanged half way through ?),safe mode unpluged the power supply and still nothing.
BUT when i pressed the restart button again windows froze after the logo screen,so i just left it to read a few articles on THIS page and voila the login screen came typed in password and everything started normaly.
My advice is if the screen goes blank after the logo screen leave it for a few minutes (around 5 for me).Don't know hwy it did that but doing nothing solved my problem.

get a new power supply. get at least a 300 watt

Today my computer will only start and then goes to a black screeen with a blinking cursur in the upper right of the screen....My computer has been running slow lately so I have been rmoving un needed files (none that have anything to do with the system)...I've tried to boot into safe mode, but it won't go there either...It sometimes gives me an error message that says Keyboard error and then its followed by the blinking cursur....I even used two other key boards and got the same message (sometimes) I've been working on this all day, trying different start up disks and boot disks/floppies....still nothing...It's a two year old Dell deminsion 8400 with windows xp home edition with service pack 2, p4, 250 gig hd, 1 and 1half gigs memory.
Anyone have any ideas out there....could sure use some help on this one....contact me directly if you like at [email address removed - post responses here - Leo] ...good thing my old computer still works...
Thanks all! and yes, I did read the top article!

Hi:

I had some troubles with my LapTop, and I want to share my experience... The computer just didn't boot, the screen was black and I couldn't even see the "IBM" logo when turning it on... The only thing I did is cleaning the RAM card, and voilà!... Good luck... By the way, my lap was a ThinkPad T41...

My Windows won't load at all,when I switch on my computer normally it will show the Intel Motherboard
sign/wallpaper and after that it wil go directly to the windows logon loading.Now what happened is it still shows the Intel Motherboard sign but after that the screen will go black but not black as if total shutdown but black colour that the screen projects and then on the top left there is a small horizon blink..now it happens before but 30 seconds after that it will still load the windows xp now,even waited for 2 hours and the windows still won't load.What is actually the problem here? my hardisk,my windows xp or my motherboard?

There are a number of reasons your PC might not boot (Viruses, Missing/Corrupt Files, Bad Sectors/Damaged Hard Drive etc) but what I would do 1st of all is check if your PC will boot from a Bootable CD (the PC does not boot from the Hard Drive - just from the CD! and you can run programs from the CD to change passwords, scan for viruses, check and fix the hard drive, recover files, etc).
You may then be able to fix the problem (using the tools included) or at least determine if it is a hardware or software fault (if the PC boots from CD it must be Windows or the Hard Drive that is corrupt, if it wont boot from a bootable CD its probably another hardware fault. i.e. Motherboard / Memory)
You can get a Bootable PC Repair CD or a Bootable Bart Disk at www.discmaster.info
click here: http://www.discmaster.info/UK/tools.htm or here: http://www.diskmaster.info/USA/tools.htm
Hope this helps!

on my opinion you should get a flopy disk with a windows start up o operating system.this wil help your computer to start if it doesnt show anything.after it has finished,remove your floppy and insert your windows xp cd,then restart your computer and follow the instruction from your cd.

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