Ran CCleaner - System won't start

C

Callidorcorsair

New Member
I was using my family computer for a few minutes, and I decided to run a CCleaner sweep to clear cached stuff, temp files, etc. It found and got rid of over 600mb of stuff. I turned the system off, and when I went to turn it back on, windows won't start. The Dell system screen flashes, then it goes to a black screen with a flashing cursor. No HD activity.

I've used this program on my own laptop and desktop, and I've never had a single problem with it. Now I feel like an ass, cause I'm worried the computer my dad uses is going to require a fresh Windows installation. The only thing I could think to check were the Dell diagnostic lights (it's an old dimension series), but the manual said the pattern indicates a "possible expansion card failure," which makes no sense. If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. I guess it also goes without saying that I won't trust CCleaner as much in the future...

EDIT: for what it's worth, CCleaner was running on default settings (in fact I actually unchecked a few things) and I did not touch the advanced options. From everything I'm reading, this should not have had the capacity to do this sort of harm to a system unless crucial system files were moved from their default locations, which I seriously doubt was the case on that machine.
 
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Hi Callidorcorsair,

So it's not possible that it is a "Possible expansion card failure"?
You could try to repair the installation, you don't have to do fresh.
Cleaners shouldn't do any harm with default settings.
 
Thanks for the reply. I didn't think it could have anything to do with an expansion card because none of that computer's PCI slots have been touched in years. In any case, the problem is solved now. I let my dad know about the issue this morning, and he said the computer's been taking several minutes to boot up recently. I assumed this must have been something more serious than that (no HD activity light, diagnostic lights reporting a problem, unable to access boot menu, etc), but he subsequently gave it about 10 minutes, and said it eventually started and is running fine.

I take it there must be some other major issue here, but apparently CCleaner isn't at fault. I've been away at school, so I haven't used this computer in quite some time. As such, I wasn't aware of it's start up issues. Perhaps I'll look into them later, but that's for another thread. ;)
 
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