[hypnotoad521]

I have had my Toshiba M45 notebook for almost 2 years, and it's been fine up till now. Yesterday, I started up my notebook as usual and logged in through the XP login screen, but after my desktop had loaded and I tried to open Internet Explorer, the whole thing just froze and I had to do hold the power button down to get it to shut off. I tried again a few times, and the same thing happened (it froze every time I tried to execute a command from the desktop). Also, after the first time, for some reason my desktop changed from my picture to an error message that said "active desktop is disabled". This morning, I decided to try again, but this time something much more serious happened: after the initial Toshiba boot-up screen (before the Windows XP loading screen), a command line came up saying "Operating system not found" along with some other things and it wouldn't go any farther. I did a hard shut down and tried again, but this time, after the initial Toshiba screen, the screen just went black and didn't even display any white command messages. I checked in the BIOS and it detects a hard drive, but I really don't know what to do from here. Please help =\
Thanks,
Dan

[Dave Hybrid]

Sounds like the Windows files are corrupt.

Dig out an XP CD and do a XP repair.

[hypnotoad521]

Dave-
Was afraid I was going to have to do that...my notebook came with XP pre-installed, does this mean I have to buy a new XP cd? And if that's the case, will my hard drive and all my files still be intact afterwards?

[philthomas]

Did you get a Recovery Disk with the system ?

If so have a look and see if there's a non destructive recovery option.