My girlfriend's PC has always acted a bit funny after being disconnected from mains power. It usually takes a few attempts to boot up, hanging on the Windows XP screen, requiring a hard reboot. Then, once powered up, the date and time would be screwed up, reading year 9997 or something like that. Anyway, despite telling her not to, she switched it off at the wall the other day, and now it will not boot at all. It gets to the Windows XP screen, and the bar at the bottom just keeps moving across. I've also tried safe mode, last known good, etc, all with the same outcome. Any ideas?

would you adam and eve it? just as I post this, I manage to boot it! However, I get a system message syaing the time/date are invalid. Apparently, it's 21:30 on Tuesday 1 January 1602! I presume this is something to do with the battery?

oh, another thing, once it does boot up, there are no more problems until the mains are turned off again.

Hello and welcome to PCHelpForum.

I think you answered your own question there,yes she needs anew BIOS battery.They are about £2-00 from any good local electrical store.

Is she shutting down the computer correctly such as click start/shut down?Or just turning the mains socket off?

JB.

she always shuts down properly, the problem only occurs if it's disconnected from the mains for some reason (the pc is always already off when this is done)

thanks

Firstly purchase a new Lithium BIOS battery.

Then disconnect all external hardware not required for booting the computer as an external USB device could be causing this.

Although I would say a dead BIOS battery is the cause of this issue.