hi all I have compaq pc xp it became really hard to get windows to start up ran really slow so tried system restore /no better I have a set of backup discs and checked them with no errors so I tried the recovery console fromthe partition memory it said successful recovery and asked for restart I did this and got blue screen saying windows starting then black screen with windows logo then all I got was please wait till I fell asleep out of boredom tried destructive restore to wipe the drive still stalls at this point using my boot and recovery discs made no difference and will not get any further even when I tried another xp pro recovery disc any ideas please

Have you entered the bios and selected boot from cd first under boot sequence options? After XP is loaded you need to enter the bios again to select boot from the hard drive so that that you get out of the installation loop requests.

hi thanks for replying so quickly I cannot view any options on any of set up screens due to it only being displayed for a split second then black dispay until the next display burst of a second it is doing this on all screens when you use f10 for recovery the increasing bar gradient on bottom of screen flickers on and off until it loads recovery console dont know how to pause display at the precise moment when display is showing you optons if I knew the order of the options I might be able to move down options at each display burst