left it on last night, went to it this morning and it had frozen,cursor would move but nothing else worked.couldnt switch it off properly so i used the reset button.
computer starts to switch on normally,but the only thing that appears is the wee pointy movey thing on top of a black screen.
whats happened and what can i do?

Try shutting it off again, but this time as it starts to come up, hit F8 and load it in Safe Mode with network support(provided that its a Windows machine, of course)...run a virus scan and/or an AdAware or SpyBot S&D scan...if these don't show anything, try shutting it down normally and restarting...or just load into safe mode and then try restarting normally if you don't want to try the scans first...

got it back through safe mode . .thanks

Sounds like hard drive failure is a strong possibility. I would run a full chkdsk /f to test it out even though you're up and running.

i phoned the fella that fixed it last time, he said i should download this http://www.ccleaner.com/ and run the cleaner and the registry fixer.
whats the thoughts on this?

I agree with JEFF.

Norton Ghost can do a back-up of programs and files for you -- but I strongly suggest backing everything up to an external drive ASAP, even if you just drop and drag your files.



I can't believe how lucky I got recently. I had replaced my old drive with a new larger drive (but did not replace the power supply). About one month later, the new drive/old power supply combo shorted out my mother board AND fried the new drive in the process - I lost everything. Lucky for me the old drive was still intact. So I purchased a new mother board (not knowing at the time that the power supply was now bad) put in the old drive and fired it up -- worked fine, for 2 days, before the power supply failed, slagging the new mother board.

Where did I get lucky? The old drive remained operational. 99% of my files, etc, still there.

Since this, I have Norton Ghost and I back-up weekly.


Good luck, Ger.

get a new hamster.

after losing my harddrive a couple years ago, i have 2 external hard drives,with everything on my computeron both of them

You should try unplugging your computer. To be safe unplug your laptop too. Then leave them off. It's the only way to be sure.

I cannot reiterate what Patrick says enough - having a big 500w power supply is very important. Many off the shelf PCs don't have this, so putting in a modern day HDD or video card becomes impossible without the specter of frying everything. I upgraded the video card in my last PC with a power supply that was below specs, and I shouldn't have done that - that's probably why the motherboard failed 9 months later and took the video card with it.

Also, wear an antistatic wrist strap when doing any in-the-PC work.

pffft

Feh...as an IT pro I feel safe saying that no one in the industry does that. Maybe if you sit at a workbench all day doing it, but not in our datacenters and not at our homes.

That aside, you're exactly right about the power supply. I replaced my too-weak 580W one with a 950W one and saw all my issues with crashing and such vanish. Of course, I lived with it until the PSU totally died.

You mean I can take this antistatic strap off now? I've had it on since 1994.

I want to thank Jeff for intervening on my behalf and standing up for my safety.

Jeff is correct. NOBODY uses them. Nobody. Ground yourself before you start work, but that's all.

Does it help to be naked when working on the insides of your PC?

Yes.

That's what we teach them at college.






And by them, I mean the good-looking students, anyway.
And by students, I mean the women in the IT courses.
And by that, I mean almost no one.

That's what we teach them at college.






And by them, I mean the good-looking students, anyway.
And by students, I mean the women in the IT courses.
And by that, I mean almost no one.

People do that clothed?

Clothes help to build up too much static electricity.

The wrist strap is bogus? Nice to know that. What's a good way to ground oneself before starting work?