I need help. Basically my computer killed itself for the second time this year, once again just when I really needed to use it. The internet wouldn't load so I took my wireless reciever dongle out and then my computer went off. Then it came up with "Boot to CD" and won't move from there. the last time something like this happened it was because my hard drive had packed in but I'm sure it's not that this time, I hope anyway. Any help as to what it might be??? :\

How old is the computer? A good time to get a new one is when the old one is 4-5 years old. That's the average lifespan of the common computer. You can try booting up in safe mode and see if it will turn on...


Select Restart, and then click OK.

As your computer restarts but when the screen is still black before the Windows screen comes up, press F8 once every second.

Use the arrow keys to highlight the appropriate safe mode option, and then press ENTER.

The computer was my uncle's, so I don't know how old it is, I only got it in July though :/
I'll try that out though and see if it works,

Edit: I startup and nothing happens, except the following:



And that's it :/

Do you have the CD for your OS?

My uncle does, but you see the last time this happened it was because my hard drive had died, and I can't understand why it happened again?

Also, I've just got The Sims 2 Apartment Life, IKEA Stuff and TS3 World Adventures and I can't play

Do you think you would risk formatting and reinstalling your OS?

Or would you take it back to your uncle to fix it, if that's possible?

I'm not sure, I've already taken it back to him once when a similar thing happened, turned out the hard drive he'd put in overheated and completely gave up, but I don't think it's the hard drive this time. I might as well just reinstall a new OS, if I lose everything it doesn't really matter, it's only a couple of games with no save file.

I'm just angry because it does this all the time and it's getting on my nerves. Twice in a year is not right for a computer to break down for no reason, isn't it?