Originally Posted by: GargyYeah, my father and I had one Mac and we messed with it some in the mid '90s... I'm never so much as touching one of those again if I can help it.



And don't get me started on Quicktime and iTunes


EDIT (And I did not read the whole thread to see if somebody else suggested this yet): This just hit me, but have you tried changing the boot order in BIOS when you tried using the recovery discs? One of the F keys will get you into BIOS at startup (Too bad you don't have a Dell, you can access the boot/diagnostics menu without going into BIOS with F2) and you can change what yoru computer boots up from. Usually it should be the hard-drive since thats what Windows is on, but you can set it up to boot from USB or the floppy or optical drives. I don't know enough about compaqs to talk you through it, unfortunately (since every PC manufacturer has different BIOS layouts from the factory). IF somebody else said this then disregard my edit (but not the Apple Sucks rant, I mean that with all my heart)

Yeah... did all that. booted into Safe mode using every combination available... it just ends up back at the recovery screen stuck at disc #4 that won't load because it's corrupted. Tried going into debugger mode and all it tells me is that windows won't load because a file is missing.
I think the power problem was actually being caused by dust... unbelievable cause I've never even heard of that before... blowing into a computer fixes it... unreal. Windows got corrupted from shutting down too many times and the recovery discs (all 6 of them) won't load cause it won't get past disc #4.

I'd have the problem fixed by now on a Mac... just put in one install disc and do a clean install, then use conflict catcher to put the old files back into the new system and desktop resetter to put my icons back in place.
Got a problem with the computer... easy, just reinstall the system folder or rebuild the desktop. At the very most, use Norton Disc Doctor to optimize and clean up the hard drive.