My brother brought me his office computer. He runs a security company and has all his invoices, quotes, etc. on the drive. He runs "some or other accounts/accounting software" (probably Pastel or something ... never saw the machine in working order) and he doesn't make backups.
So he brought the machine to me on Friday telling me it was broken. He had some virus warnings ("what do you mean, do I keep my antivirus up to date?") and then one morning he couldn't boot into Windows. It would take you to that "Windows failed to load" screen where it gives options for Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration, Normal Windows, etc. Didn't matter which option you chose, it hung on booting.
I thought a repair installation would help, so I booted from the Win XP CD and tried the repair, but after it rebooted it just went to a black screen and nothing happens. It posts okay, but then the cursor blinks at the top, stops blinking, and then nothing.
I've tried fixmbr and fixboot from the recovery console (in sheer desperation) but it still hasn't sorted it. I plugged the drive as a slave in my computer and ran a virus check, a check disk and even a defrag ... still no joy.
What am I missing?
(I even thought of upgrading him to Windows 7, but you have to boot into Windows and do the upgrade from there and, well, yes ...)
