Hi all, I'm new here...  I'm having tons of trouble with a HP Pavilion zv5000 notebook.  It has 1GB of RAM, a 40GB HDD, a CD-RW drive, but no floppy disk drive.  I have up-to-date virus software, spyware, and firewall.

Now that you know the kind of machine I'm dealing with...

This all started yesterday when I "halfway" uninstalled UBUNTU on my dual-boot system with XP in order to free up some disk space because I never really used the Linux portion anyway.  The comp was accidentally shutdown before I was able to finish this task, however, and upon trying to reboot the sys, I was shot down by an Error 22 from the PART of the HDD trying to load ubuntu because files were missing in order to boot.  So, it was impossible for me to boot up in XP, because ubuntu controlled the boot order for the HDD.  So, I inserted my "real" copy of the XP OS CD so I could use its partitioner in order to rid myself completely of ubuntu.  It deleted nicely.  However, my jump for joy upon seeing the Windows XP logo upon a reboot was stepped upon when all of a sudden instead of fully loading the OS, a blue screen was flashed for about a millisecond (so I don't know what it says), the screen goes black for a few seconds, and then it tries to reload XP again.  Same thing happens.  This won't stop unless I turn off the comp by holding the power button.  It does this every time I load up the computer via the HDD.

So, I thought that something happened to my XP of course, so I tried to insert my XP OS CD again so I could try to do a repair or something...  When I tried to do that, the same old screen saying "to boot from CD press any key..."  came up, so i pressed a key.  Then a screen flashes saying it's diagnosing the HDD, and then the screen goes blank and the CD doesn't boot up like it did earlier.  So, I try booting it numerous times, and the same thing happens.  I tried the disk on another machine, and it worked fine.  I have a Ubuntu OS disk, and it booted up fine on this machine.  I was also able to access the HDD from the Ubuntu.  However, the Ubuntu disk won't allow me to transfer anything from it to an external HDD because I supposedly don't own the rights to the data I'm trying to move... haha...  I guess it's just because the OS disk is just a "trial" version, and you have to actually install it in order to do anything like that.  So... I considered reinstalling Ubuntu just so I could have access to my data and move it before anything else happens, but it doesn't recognize the partition containing XP and my data, so I decided not to do that.  I went into the BIOS on the next reboot and did the SHORT and LONG HDD Self-tests.  They both passed.

Will someone please help me out?  Even if you just have a suggestion on how to get my data off the HDD, it would be helpful... I was thinking of trying to use a USB cable or something and hook it up to another machine while it's just idling after the XP OS CD fails again or something... would I be able to access my files that way? What happens when you enter safe mode? Or use the 'last known good CONFIGURATION'?

Unless Windows loads, you will not have access to your files with an USB cable. You might be able to use a Linux liveCD and burn your files to disk or copy them to USB memory stick since you've already got experience with using Linux you'll know how that goes down. It doesn't give me the options of entering safe mode or using the 'last known good configuration.'  The XP logo comes up with the loading bar for a couple of seconds, it flashes to a blue screen for a split second, the screen goes black and it happens again.What Raptor meant was to enter the boot menu

To do this, press F8 before the Windows load screen.

Then do what Raptor saidThanks, but F8 doesn't do anything on my machine before the XP logo. I tried every other function key, and it doesn't SEEM like I can access the boot menu that way.  F10 opens the PheonixBIOS menu, F12 tries to load from a LAN connection (which I don't have), and Esc opens the Boot order menu.  None of the other ones do anything... is there another way to access the boot menu?Unfortunately, there is no other access (except a boot disk, do you have a floppy drive?)

Continually (and in press, release, press, release) press the F8 key a few seconds before the boot screen. OK cool... continually pressing F8 like that worked, but unfortunately I'm getting the same problem whether I try booting in Safe Mode or under the last good configuration.   Oh, and no... unfortunately I don't have a floppy drive. Quote from: Raptor on April 21, 2007, 04:01:27 PM

You might be able to use a Linux liveCD and burn your files to disk or copy them to USB memory stick since you've already got experience with using Linux you'll know how that goes down.