oh boy

okay, cool. right now i gtg, but i'll check back tomorrow and i'll have the boot cd ready. i'll be careful with puppy and not change anything in the system except for maybe copy a few files to the usb-sticks (there's 3 ports, so no problems). Thanks again!

alright, there is no CCleaner for Linux - i had a feeling it was a stupid question... any suggestions on the XP-issue? Again, i'm already pretty happy that the pc is running again, so if there's no solution, then my parents just have to get used to Linux

Dude, it works!!! That was a great tipp, thanks a lot! I'm running Puppy Linux from a USB stick and have access to the hard drive. This solution is already good enough for me and we'll have all the files available again. But i know that my parents will be asking for their beloved Windows XP... so, this might be a dummy-question, but would it make sense to install CCleaner again (under Linux) and re-change the Autostart-settings and then Windows will work again? Actually... this already sounds as if it's a stupid idea... is it?

no no, i'm sincerely grateful for all the help + advise i can get. like i said - i "tried" to install these distributions, and since nothing works i'm afraid that my knowledge is rather neglectable... But again - it might indeed be a hardware issue, the computer is... hmm 5-7 years old i guess, and it wasn't too expensive.

so far i tried to install the latest Ubunto, Linux Mint and Fedora distributions, tried it both from CD and USB-stick. i always got to the point where i saw the first install-screen, but after a few minutes the monitor went black or froze and that was it. i'll try the Puppy Linux as well, thanks for the links + advice!

Thanks for your quick replies! i guess it is possible that it's just a coincidence, but there was no other problem on the pc (at least none that i noticed). yes, i tried the safe mode, the "last known configuration",... i tried all available options, none worked. When i try to boot Windows i get up to the regular XP start-screen with the running points/line (i guess that's what you mean with "splash"-screen)... this stays for maybe 10-20 seconds, and then the BIOS starts over and i'll get to the boot options again.

Hello, this is really embarrassing... so, my parents own a PC with Windows XP. They don't really have a clue about computers and only use it to browse a little, email and stuff like that. if there is something to install or any problems at all, they call me (no expert either, but not a complete noob - usually). Now, a while ago i installed the CCleaner and run it a few times since then, just to clean the temp.files etc. However, the last time i did that, i guess i had a blackout and decided to also set ALL existing autostart-entries to "No". I was actually surprised when the computer refused to reboot. At first i thought it's no big deal and wanted to re-install Windows, but it turned out my parents don't have the CD anymore. Then i thought - alright, let's try Linux then (always wanted to do that anyway). Problem is - regardless of the distribution, it seems that i can not install anything on that damned computer anymore (or maybe i'm just too stupid). i'll just never get further then the BIOS - every OS begins to boot and then... nothing. My question is now: how can i fix this? how do i get the machine to start up again? did i completely wreck it by changing all autostart-entries? Any help would be appreciated.