posted
I've tried Googling my problem, but I can't seem to find anything about it. There was one person with a similar problem and there were no solutions offered. So I figured I would turn to you guys to offer solutions.
I use this PC (which is 5 or 6 years old) mainly as my PC for editing screenplays and such. I have Final Draft Pro (a screenwriting program) on there. I use the computer about once every two weeks or so (basically as needed for my screenwriting classes). The last time I had it successfully working (i.e. it started up fine, everything was up to date, and there were no problems) was about 2 and a half weeks ago.
I had my computer on on Friday to start working on my latest addition for class. It started up fine at the time. When I logged in, I'm fairly certain it said I had updates and things to install. I was in a fairly bad mood that night, so I just let it do its thing. I turned the monitor off and went back to my iMac to do other things.
Now today I've come back to actually work on my screenplay. I'm still not in a pleasant mood, but I knew I needed to work on it as I have a meeting with the professor tomorrow. When I turned on the monitor, it looked to be on one of the start up screens. It had some error message about not finding a boot disk to load from. I was confused as there was no disk in either the CD drive or the floppy drive. I hit enter, and it just repeated the message. I tried everything I could think of (skip, ignore, cancel, exit, escape, quit, restart), but it just repeated the away message. I was very frustrated, so I just hit the restart button on my PC.
The thing started up like normally. It showed the information about the computer (including the option to change BIOS settings and all). It got all the way to a screen telling me that Windows didn't properly start last time. I think everyone knows what screen I'm talking about (the one with the options of very safe mode restarts, restart from last good setting, and just normal mode). I tried normal mode, and it seemed to work. It did the black screen with gray loading bar and then went to the Windows XP Pro screen with the blue loading bar. I turned away from the computer for a second (cell phone call), and when I looked back it was back at the start up screen.
I've tried the other options as well with similar results. On the Safe mode load ups (any of the three), it loads a long list of files (system registry stuff I believe). It gets to one "mup.sys" (which I hear others have problems with), and then it does the same thing (goes back to the beginning). It's more or less an infinite loop.
I haven't loaded anything recently. The only thing that could have changed between then and now was a possible Windows update and restart. Is there some way a Windows update could have corrupted something and caused this?
This is rather frustrating to me. I can only edit my screenplay stuff on my Windows PC (as Final Draft Pro is a Windows-only software). I can write new stuff on my iMac using Word, but it will take a lot longer (as I will have to manually format it and all). I can't however access my saved files for it (meaning I can't change or edit any of the old stuff without just fully retyping it). I saved a PDF file of the my last draft of the screenplay in case of an emergency (I never expected one, but I typically keep a back up of stuff just in case). Still, if I can't get Windows to work, it's going to be very, very frustrating and time consuming to have to retype 30 pages of heavily formatted text.
As I said, I've looked for solutions through Google, but I can't find very many that are similar to mine. A lot of people with similar problems had done something previously (installed new software or hardware or some suhc thing). My problem seems unprovoked and likely the fault of Windows itself. I get frustrated reading some of the solutions offered for these types of problems though, as they typically boil down to "You should reinstall Windows once a week at least" or something like that. An OS should be stable enough that your computer doesn't need a defrag and reinstall every week. That's just ridiculous.
If anyone can offer help, I'd greatly appreciate it. I would need to do something in the next hour or so if I'm going to do anything at all though. If I can't get it to work in the next hour, then I should probably start on the long process of writing and formatting my screenplay on my iMac.
posted
That's part of the problem. My XP install disc is about 4 hours south of me at my parents' house. Since I rarely use the PC for anything, I never thought to take all the discs I have for it with me (particularly when I'm so low on space around here). Now I'm kicking myself though since I don't have the disc that could possibly fix the problem.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
You said you tried restarting in all the safe mode options and it still auto restarts...hmmmmmm...I had the same problem and I had to use the disk to fix it cause I just couldn't figure out a better way of doing it cause I needed access fast. I am pretty sure someone else will have a better idea of what to do, sorry I wasn't more help.
You can maybe get a trial version of screenwriter 2000 or something that has a preformatted option to word. There are also a bunch of templates avaiable for Word which allow you easier formatting when writing for the stage or screen and I am pretty sure there are some for book writing as well. Try a google search until you can get your disks or someone comes up with abetter solution to fix your PC.
Posts: 871 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
At the moment, I'm attempting to get ScreenPro to work on Word for Mac. It may be able to do the basic formatting stuff for me, but a) the page number will be off (as it doesn't allow for renumbering of pages) and b) it still means I will have to retype the first 30 pages at some point.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Is it something that has to be done by tomorrow, if not can your parents over night the disks to you or something and you just have to keep writing and then cut and paste once you get your PC back up and running???
Posts: 871 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
I have a meeting with my professor tomorrow to discuss my next set of pages (we're writing episodes of a TV show and I need to have the first episode finished and the second one started). As I said, the makeshift solution I have now is fine for a temporary thing. I can at least churn out the pages for the rest of episode 1 and the first part of episode 2 and just explain that the formatting is slightly off (tabs and numbering nad all) due to the computer problems. This can't be a permanent solution though because a) the temporary version isn't even letting me fully save what I'm writing and b) having to rewrite 30 pages and reformat it (since even this format isn't fully correct) is a pain in the butt. I need to get my PC up and running again so I can actually go back to writing it normally.
My parents could overnight the disks if they were at home. They're visiting my sister at college at the moment. So either they'd have to overnight it after that or I'd have to buy another discounted copy of Windows XP at the student computer store (which I don't fully want to do as I don't have the free cash for it).
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
If you can get your hands on ANY Windows install disc, try running CHKDSK /F. My gut tells me that disk corruption during an OS update caused your problem.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom, are you sure about that /F? I got my XP boot disc and ran the repair option (R on the setup screen). It eventually took me to a command prompt. When I type "CHKDSK C: /F" though, I get a "The parameter is not valid." If I just run "CHKDSK C:" it goes through a whole scan and brings up a message saying "CHDSK found one or more errors on the volume." Any help at this point would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I restarted the computer just to check and it went to Safe Mode. Is there anything I should do in Safe Mode before I try restarting again in normal mode?
EDIT 2: I looked online and found the reason I couldn't run /F. I got it set up to run /F though on the restart. So I'm restarting it now and hopefully it gets fixed fully. Wish me luck.
EDIT 3: Well that seems to have fixed whatever was glitching it and causing it to do the reboot loop (as it has successfully rebooted back to normal Windows again). I have a new problem now though. I can't get a wireless signal at all on my PC. It's fairly close to my iMac which is getting the signal perfectly well. The PC picks it up and drops it though. It can't be the router because both my iMac and my roommate's laptop are connected to it fine now. So that means there is some other error. Anyone have any ideas?
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the /f switch only works inside windows. In the repair console the only options you have are /r and /p. They both (more or less) do the same thing, though.
edit: Uninstall the drivers for your wireless card and then reboot. Considering you had a bit of corruption, it's likely the driver got funked up.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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