COMPUTER PROBLEM, help please.

[Cubol]

I turnt on my pc earlier and it come up with starts windows normally, safe mode and something else. So I clicked start windows normally and it started to load then it went back to the options, I tried a couple of times then gave up and thought I would do a system recovery by doing F10. Nothing happened it just went straight back to the options again.

Also when you turnt it off you only have to press the tower button once and it goes off where usually you would have to hold it for a few seconds before it turns off.

Somebody told me do the following;
Do a repair installation using the Windows XP Installation CD:

1. Insert your CD into your CD/DVD Drive.
2. When prompted press any key to enter the setup (if this fails to appear, you will need to enter you're bios setup and change the boot sequence to boot from your CD/DVD drive before your Hard Disk)
3. Let the setup load.
4. Press "enter" (or return) to install windows.
5. There should then be an option to do a repair installation (You may need to agree to some T&C first).
6. Press "R" for repair when prompted.

This should install a fresh copy of windows over the existing copy, but the programs and documents will remain in tact.

I entered in the disk but there wasn't a repair option it just did some scan thing like copying files, then it did windows XP installition, now it's all working but it's like it's gone back to factory settings, none of my documents or programmes are there. :|

[The Professor]

If you go to my computer then C is there a folder called windows.old? It might be in there. If not it sounds like you've hit a wrong button and wiped over everything

[Cubol]

No there isn't |:

[Tomm]

Unless you want to spend a large amount of time attempting to recover the files then I'd say you use this as a lesson and don't attempt to do things that are risky that you don't fully understand.

However, if there is something important on there then you should stop using your computer now (i.e unplug it, forget shutdown) and either attempt to recover the data yourself or take it to a specialist.

[The Professor]

yeah what's that program that can recover lost files? I can't remember its name "/

[Gibs960]

You could try takin it to where u bought it, they should tell you what it is, or send it off for repair, but it'd probably cost for sendin it off.