Hi all, when booting up computer, it keeps coming back to "start windows normally screen" after pressing enter it goes through start up process, only to rturn to start normally promt, has been suggested hard drive may have gone, any one confirm, any sugestions would be helpful...

Hi

First thing to try, choose Start Computer in Safe Mode

This should get the PC up and running with minimal drivers and add-ons, as this is the simplest check to make.

Depending on what happens then will give an indication of faulty hard drives or corrupt registries.

Hi Doc, tried starting in safe mode, safe with networking and last known good config, still stuck in boot up loop...

maybe boot from your windows disc. do a repair windows option, it will over write any corrupt files.
this may lead to a sucessful boot.

put windows disc in restart and before start press f12.choose option repair start up, hope all goes well.Happened to me two or three times and was told hard drive was gone.

If you can get to a DOS prompt try typing CHKDSK /R

This will check the hard drive for you, which will give you an indication of any bad sectors (failing hard drive) and should also repair any errors that the drive is reporting.

If this doesn't work then you might have to perform a Windows Repair (file registery repair) however if you have a faulty hard drive this wont help much, also I've seen a lot of people try this and accidentally perform a system format and full Windows reinstall instead of a repair, so be aware of which buttons you are pressing and what you are agreeing to

My suggestion would be as the computer boots, press F8 key will the same menu appears you are getting now, you should then have an additional option of "disable restart on system failure" select this option, then the computer should freeze on a blue screen with an error message on it.

If so let us know what this error is then can advise a bit better.

My guessing would be "Unmountable_Boot_Volume" which then as TheDr says using a dos prompt and running chkdsk /r would fix this, there are also 2 other commands that can be used from a windows install CD which are "fixboot" and "fixmbr"

Yes you are right, it iscoming up with
Unmountable_boot_volume, also as it shuts down to go back to restart screen a single " click" can be heard from the computer tower

Do you have access to a windows install cd for your version of windows?