Another need help for a friend question

[transplant99]

OK..so a buddy of mine has this Compaq that is running XP...he goes to turn it on the other day and only gets as far as a screen that says something went wrong with a hardware or software change. He hadnt added nor deleted either according to him.

Its a black screen with white writing that states.

Safe Mode
Safe mode with Networking
Safe Mode with (something i forget)

Start at last known working configuration (or something like that)

Start normally.

Tried them all and it will go to the Windows XP screen...followed by the Compaq screen...the right back to the above screen.

Sounds like something has failed...but i cant figure out what it is...any suggestions?

[keratosis]

Start by removing peripherals.
Video Card, hard drives(except for boot drive)etc...
And any thing plugged into USB or Firewire ports.
Reboot. If it starts normally start adding devices
one at a time and reboot. Continue this process
until computer won't start.
If computer won't boot after all parts are removed
it could be few things either a bad stick of ram, failing
power supply or corrupt windows install.
Do this first and see if it helps, if not
post again and we can go from there.

[cKy]

Google and find the ERD .. used to be made by Winternals but it got bought out by MS. You can search for the previous versions before the MS version. ERD Commander it is called. Boot with that.. run chkdsk /f in a dos window, and see if it gives you any errors.