Power outage, now XP will not load

[tamd68]

I have an older pc, Dell dimension L33r, 40G, upgraded to 521mb RAM, 733mhz processor.  Two days ago power lines were hit and our power was knocked out, both pc's were on when the outage occured.  This one was not affected, but the dell will not load windows.  We had been out of town for several hours before we knew there was a problem, and when we came back rebooted both pc's. When we turn on the dell it goes to the error screen that says windows did not start successfully, and offers choice of mode to start windows.  I have started in safe mode and scanned the hard drive, but no bad sectors were found.  I have chosen last know good, and start normally, but it will not load past the black windows xp screen.  What else is there I can do, besides the old "beat it with a hammer? LOL

[GX1_Man]

You can try a repair install IF you have a real XP CD. Your data should be safe with this method.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

If the machine was running some files may have been damaged. You will need to update Windows after this.

This is, of course, assuming that there was no hardware damage, but you describe it booting up to the point of it trying to load Windows.

[tamd68]

Thnx GX1_Man.  I do have a real copy, and I will try that as wel as the link you posted.  Since most of our data has been stored on that pc and not the gateway, I am anxious to get it back in operation.  Also, thanx for your quick response.

[GX1_Man]

Let us know of your progress.