My computer wont turn on

[stephoo]

Hello, Im not very good with computers and my home PC is rather slow. I thought i was being clever last night deleting some files that i thought were not used anymore. After doing this and emptying the recycle bin i couldnt connect to the internet. I tried turning off and turning on again but now the computer wont get passed the drive error check. It thinks there is a disk in the cd drive which there isnt. It is making funny banging noises like its trying to load something. It is quite old and i dont expect miricals but i wondered if there is any point trying to save it or should i just throw it away?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice anyone can offer.

[GX1_Man]

Do you  have a Windows CD to reinstall? That sounds like a good place to start and would be a great time to check the hardware as well. What computer or motherboard make model, processor, RAM, etc. is involved?

[missingmylaptop]

AHH I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM WITH MY LAPTOP!
my laptop has been going crazy for the past couple of weeks. i'm thinking my lappy got messed up from accidentally letting it sit on battery power while it was burning a CD. the battery ended up dying and when i go to restart my comp it was extremely slow and notifications were popping up here and there. after restarting the comp a couple more times, it refused to even start up. it now reads a message after it pitifully tries to start-up, it reads "WINDOWS COULD NOT START BC THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPT: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

this does not sound good and it's making me crazy. i live off my laptop, everything is on it. i am desperate for help. i have used the WINDOWS installation CD and tried to run the repair, but it will not run.  WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT THIS?

[GX1_Man]

A) It is bad form to highjack someone else's thread, as their problem and solution may not be the same as yours, even though it may seem so to you. (Please notice his machine is a desktop and yours is a laptop.)

B) A hard drive is never a safe place to store very valuable data. THey all die eventually, some with no warning.

C) We know nothing about the make/model or specifics of your laptop. I'm just not into guessing today, so it's your turn to provide some info.

D) When you get error messages or "notifications" as you say, it is important to know verbatim what they are.

E) Both of you need to provide basic info as well as what kind of spyware/virus protection was being used if necessary and what happened prior to the distres.

[missingmylaptop]

in reply to the previous message

A) sorry about the bad form. a friend of mine referred me to this site; i have no idea what threads or posts or blogs or any of this is. i just clicked on the first title that seemed most like my situation and hit reply. proper etiquette for this kind of correspondence, like computers, is beyond me. for that, i apologize.

B) i am NOW starting to see that the hard rive is not the best place to store  :-/ what i am most concerned for are my pics and music.

C) my laptop is a toshiba satellite

D) i do not remember what the first notifications said, but i did write down the one that is now showing up when i try and turn on my comp.

E) i use norton internet security and anti-virus. like i mentioned before, i was burning a cd and was unknowingly running on battery power. my battery died in the middle of the burning. i can't imagine how bad that could be for my laptop.

i hope this is enough to help. thanks  

[GX1_Man]

in reply to the previous message
C) my laptop is a toshiba satellite

And the model # is? Processor? RAM?

D) i do not remember what the first notifications said, but i did write down the one that is now showing up when i try and turn on my comp.

And it is?

E) i use norton internet security and anti-virus. like i mentioned before, i was burning a cd and was unknowingly running on battery power. my battery died in the middle of the burning. i can't imagine how bad that could be for my laptop.

Make sure the system is clean:

http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1134123580