Long start up time for XP ??? unusual effect

[gray]

I have had 3 hard disc crashes, either caused by a bug or virus unkown
to Norton or the installation of SP3.

The latest caused the NTFS 'file allocation table' to go corrupt.

I have since got a new drive and have only installed SP1, and am only
installing a minimal amount of software to keep me running, including
Apache server.

I will keep it like that until it appears stable.

However my problem now with a newly installed XP system is that
between the BIOS and windows starting ( ie the screen with the windows
flag on)

I now get a totally black screen with a black and white stripped
progress bar at the bottom of the screen. This takes approx 2 mins to
fully go white. There is no text on the screen or any clues as to what
is happening. any ideas, as I assume its installing something???

After that has been completed, the rest of XP then installs its self
no problem.

Any advice or clues please.

TIA

 

[Guest]

Your IDE cable is too long or bad

 

[gray]

Your IDE cable is too long or bad

I now it might sound strange, but why do you say the cable is bad ??

It should not be too long, as its always been the same length, and it
has previously been OK.

Surely in trying to access programs, I would get errors all the time,
or maybe even sometimes ??

And why does the BIOS recognise the hard drive and running chkdsk
finds no problems

 

[Leythos]

I have had 3 hard disc crashes, either caused by a bug or virus unkown
to Norton or the installation of SP3.

The latest caused the NTFS 'file allocation table' to go corrupt.

I have hundreds of systems that use XP, Norton or Symantec, and have
never had a drive compromised (anything for that matter) while running
Norton or Symantec. I suggest you've got another problem that you are
not seeing.

I have since got a new drive and have only installed SP1, and am only
installing a minimal amount of software to keep me running, including
Apache server.

I will keep it like that until it appears stable.

However my problem now with a newly installed XP system is that
between the BIOS and windows starting ( ie the screen with the windows
flag on)

I now get a totally black screen with a black and white stripped
progress bar at the bottom of the screen. This takes approx 2 mins to
fully go white. There is no text on the screen or any clues as to what
is happening. any ideas, as I assume its installing something???

You have a hardware problem. It could be any number of things, cheap
video card, cheap memory, cheap motherboard, need updated BIOS,
defective drive cables, bad drivers, over clocked system. Not one system
in any of our offices does like you describe.

After that has been completed, the rest of XP then installs its self
no problem.

Any advice or clues please.

Reset your BIOS to default setting, remove all cards that are not needed
- leave Video. Reseat all drive cables. Boot up and see if that makes a
difference. One last thing - check to make sure your CPU fan is working.