How do I fix my Emachine EL1200 computer?
It was working fine until the other day. Now when I power it on it goes by the Windows screen and then goes to the emachine screen that has F2 and F10 on the bottom and acts like it is going to load up but then it goes to this blue screen that stays open about 2 seconds and then goes to a black screen that says something about powering off unintentional and gives the option to start normally and a few more. I have tried all options of starting but it always goes through this process. I have bought the recovery disks but I cannot get that to work either. Any ideas.
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it sounds like one of your boot files or registry has become corrupted. this can usually be fixed with the windows cd. It could be your RAM like stalin said, but that is very very rare. have any changes been made to your system recently? any newly added hardware or software such as drivers? these sometimes cause the blue screen of death.
Worst case scenario is you will have to reinstall windows and everything you had on your hard drive will be lost. there is, however, a way to back up your data on a nonfuntioning PC. it does require a little computer savvy though. you can install another hard drive that has an operating system already installed on it. Configure the BIOS to boot from that hard drive. Then copy the data you want to save from your old hard drive to the newly installed hard drive. This could be complicated if you have never done it before as you would also have to make sure you had the correct type of hard drive to install on your motherboard. if you're not worried about losing your data, but just want your comp to work, then follow the next step.
Put your windows cd in your computer and start it up. If your comp wont boot from the cd, then you will have to change the boot order of devices in your BIOS. to do this, press the f2 or f10 button when that screen appears(which ever on gives you the option to Enter Setup or BIOS). from here you will have to look around for where you can change what device your computer will boot from and in what order. I cannot tell you exactly how to find it because all BIOS manufacturers set them up in different ways. once you find it make sure the CD drive is selected to boot first. once you do that, save and exit. then reboot and it should boot from the windows cd.
a blue screen should come up and start loading a bunch of stuff. when it says something like " press f6 to start recovery" DON'T DO IT. wait until it gives you the option to repair. running the repair may be able to fix it.
if that doesn't work then your registry may be damaged, in which case you will need to put in a new registry. you can also use your windows disk for that. this link will show you how to do it.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
It could also be your Master Boot Record or your NTLDR file. in that case go here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314503
It sounds like a memory Dimm stick failure. One of the modules has failed. Your machine sounds like a 2005 or 2006 so it is about time to pick up that 1GB 184 pin 3.3 Mhz Dimm stick to get it working again. Or buy a much better computer for 2009 from HP or Compaq with substantial increases of memory and a better processor ; all for $399-$449. Free Shipping till Dec.31,2009.