From within Windows, do Norton Disk Doctor with automatic fix checked. It
should try and then tell you that it can't do it , but will request
permission to run Disk Doctor the next time the computer reboots. Give it
permission and then restart the computer. Disk Doctor (chkdsk) should then
run before Windows tries to start.

I've never run a Compaq so I'm not able to help if there is something unique
to Compaq that may be affecting your computer. It still sounds to me as a
communication problem with the hard drive. During the initial part of the
boot process, the computer establishes a communication link with the hard
drive. This usually is very quick. If there is a problem, the computer can
take a relatively long time (while retrying) to either establish the link or
give up trying.

Good luck.

Tom Mayer

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Brooks" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] PC not booting properly


Thanks for all the help. It's hard to fix a computer without seeing it.

The computer has worked well for the last 24 hours but was bad for the
preceding 24 hours so I had time to try different things when it was bad.
Here is what it was doing - maybe this well give someone an idea:
Turn computer on and it shows the "Compaq Splash Screen" with the option to
enter "Setup".  Normally this is shown for only a few seconds but now will
stay for a period that varies between two minutes and three minutes.
After this it will usually, not always but usually, load Windows or a
bootable disk if one is in the drive.
If I hit F10 to enter setup it has a similar long delay before going into
setup but then (again usually) seems to work well.

I ran chkdsk on my first partition (active & NTFS) from Windows and scandisk
on the rest of the HD (FAT32) from DOS. Scandisk and Norton Disk Doctor
don't  see my NTFS partition from DOS and won't check it from within
Windows. Using a program to display NTFS partitions from DOS doesn't help. I
may not have the software to do it or just simply don't know how to run
scandisk on my NTFS partition.

One suggestion was a computer shop. That is looking more like the answer
everyday but an intermittent problem is difficult as it may work well in the
shop.

John Brooks
[log in to unmask]

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