Help me Please

Hi can someone please help me. I am running windows xp professional and some sort of error developed and i can now only open internet explorer and if i try to open other programs it says they cannot be found. i tried to system restore but that wudnt work. i tried 2 copies of xp to reinstall but both times it displayed the msg Disk BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Can any1 help me please

 

Hmmmm, Have you tried inserting the system disk and pressing enter.

 

Actually, he didn't say he can't boot his computer. He said, "i can now only open internet explorer and if i try to open other programs it says they cannot be found".

Is this a legal installation of Windows XP?
What happens when you try to run system restore?
What software are you trying to run? I assume when it says they cannot be found that you are clicking on shortcuts on the desktop? Or is it from Start | Run?

When it tells you it can't find a program, it will/whouls also give you an option to search for the program -- have you let the OS do that? If so, what happens?

Try this:

Start | Run... enter "C:\Windows\explorer.exe /n,/e,C:\" (without the quotes) and press the <Enter> key

What happens when you do that?

 

Ohhhh, I take it that ''boot your computer'' doesn't just mean give it a swift kick then.

I need to swot up on 'PC's for Dummies' me thinks...

 

i tired wot u said minstrel it cudnt find the file and i searched thru the search option and it wasnt there. it is a semi-legal copy, I have been informed by a computer shop that its a virus and that reinstalling windows and formatting the hard drive will work but i cannot get it to boot from cd to reinstall windows. any ideas any1

 

I didn't know there was such a thing as semi-legal, can you explain?

(Im wondering if you got any CDs with it)

 

emm is from a legal source but i dont have the hologram sticker on the pc
i have 2 copies of windows xp sitting beside me

 

Hmmm... if you can't even load Windows Explorer, you do have a problem that won't be fixed by tinkering.

It may be that your CD drivers are corrupted -- one of my sons got some sort of virus or worm on his system that disabled his CD drives so he couldn't reinstall.

I would suggest you start by reading Utilities for Basic Computer Security and see if you are able to run one of the online virus scans. Then see if you can load one of the anti-spyware removers mentioned.

If both of those fail or turn up nothing, then you probably need to try a reformat and reinstall -- I hope you have backups of an documents and settings you'll need.

To do this, your system should be configured so that it will check the CD drive on boot before booting from the hard drive. You do this from your BIOS Setup panel (usually you need to hit <F8> or <del> or sometimes <F4> repeatedly during boot, depending on your machine) -- check the order of the boot sequence so that the BIOS will look at the CD drive BEFORE it checks the hard drive, i.e., the CD will take precedence).

Then reboot with the Windows Setup CD in place. If this is an upgrade edition rather than the full install, you'll need the CD or diskettes from an earlier eligible version as proof of eligibility for the upgrade.

If your system will boot from the CD, you're in. Then you have a choice:

1. try to do a Windows setup repair -- PRO: you may not have to reinstall all your software (wlthough my guess is this won't be true in your case) and you will keep ant documents you've created -- CON: if you have a virus or spyware infection, chances are this may not work and you may have to start again because you'll still have the infection after the reinstall

2. do a hard drive reformat beforte installing Windows - this SHOULD clean out most spyware and viruses/worms/trojans and give you a clean start. Then immediately get antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software installed ASAP -- see the article mentioned above -- and stay away from all websites (and email) until you have those safeguards in place.