Lisa, I sent you an email :-) Kim

Hi Pam: I've been building these machines since 1990, although I have called it quits years ago, except for family and close friends. I have a collection of 'obsolete' motherboards starting with the 8088 and the 8086 and so on. This is my process of ilimination and has no concern for your own abilities for analysis it's just the way it would have to be worded/questioned. If you want some help, go through these steps and send me an email. What sounds do you have? If no sound at all, make sure there is not an on off power switch on the back of your power supply box. Make sure it's on and all plugs are tightly in and your power bar is also switched on. If you hear the power supply box but not any of the fans, try switching out your memory cards, they (or one)may be what burned out. If you hear your fans as well, listen for one beep, if you hear it, all is well with your hardware and something is wrong with your operating system bootup. Make sure you have no floppy disc of cdrom in your drawers. Most systems' bios' are set to have at least one of these to boot up first, in case of the need. They must be empty when you boot up normally everytime, if they are set up to check for a bootup disk first. If your motherboard is fried you will not get anything but the powersupply fan. Although if your second memory slot (and maybe some other rare places) is fried keep memory cards out of it - check the teeth on the memory card to. If it's your first slot that's burned (I have a gigabyte board that burned this one out), your motherboard is done in. While your in there, clean it out - those viscious little dust bunny are wickeder than you think. Crossing currents where they don't belong. Make sure it's unplugged before working in a machine. Also tighten all connections/cables and you'll likelier to have a smoother and faster machine than you had - supposing we can get it working. You can email me and let me know where you're at with it. Your lucky you have a second machine. I always keep an old Win98 around, eccential for internet info for some repairs or analysis. Which environment do you have? Windows XP? It would help to know if you have a P2 or newer as well. 1 ghz or better. If so press F8 on boot up to try to get to safe mode. Once in, you can use system restore back to a prior date. Virus's can remove the boot sector (genb and genp are older virus' that did this) but that doesn't mean your machine can't be rebuilt. I'm hoping to avoid the process of booting up from another disk as that's a whole new ball game. It's pretty much a call to rebuild your software environment which will scrub out all your prior data. But it is a whole lot easier to rebuild than in the old days as long as you have all original disks. Keep 'em clean people, they'll purr for you - Sandy

Hi jean_mi_z5, Reports inconclusive to me. It's showing a lot of system file crashes, but those crashes can be caused by 3ed party files / drives causing the Microsoft drivers to crash and I don't see any 3ed party listed. If you're having a lot of blue screens and it appears you are, I strongly recommend you post at the link provided. Under the topic below BSOD, Crashes, Kernel Debugging Here is a link that might be useful: BSOD, Crashes, Kernel Debugging

I agree with Raven here, I would not be taking a Celeron computer in for repair. That might well cost half the price of a new computer. You don't have a friend, neighbour or relative who might loan you their Windows XP CD? Explain to them that you do not need the license number as your license sticker on the side of the computer case is the one you would enter as you install XP. That sticker number is tied to the motherboard in your computer. (I suspect that if you have XP Home then you would need an XP Home CD) Recovery disks are bought at the time of the computer purchase. Or this is more often just a separate partition on your hard drive and the buyer should create a set of recovery disks. This includes all the 'free' extras the computer maker adds on. The XP CD is just that, a copy of Windows XP with nothing added As a side note you may want to suggest to Dad that he creates a set of recovery disks for his machine in case he runs into problems too at some future point.