Windows Update - Computer no longer boots up

[Ronald]

Help!

05/08/07 - I was using my Dell 600m laptop as I normally do, and I
noticed the shield in the system tray which indicated I had three
updates ready. I proceeded with the Express Install. After I was
finished with my work, I re-booted for the updates to take affect.
Now my computer doesn't boot up at all. I can't even boot to Safe
Mode to undo the updates.

During the boot-up phase, I do get the Windows XP (home version)
screen and that bar going across the middle of the screen, but then
instead of bringing up my desktop, the screen goes blank.

Booting to Last Known Good Configuration results in the same.

Booting to Safe Mode gives me a bunch of lines of
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2), etc ...

.... and it hangs up when it gets to Drivers\agpCPQ.sys

I don't know if it's stuck on this one or the one after.

Booting to VGA mode gives me the blank screen as well.

I haven't done a repair to Windows yet, as I wanted to exhaust my
other options first.

What to do?

Thanks in advance.

- Ron

 

[Ronald]

Help!

05/08/07 - I was using my Dell 600m laptop as I normally do, and I
noticed the shield in the system tray which indicated I had three
updates ready. I proceeded with the Express Install. After I was
finished with my work, I re-booted for the updates to take affect.
Now my computer doesn't boot up at all. I can't even boot to Safe
Mode to undo the updates.

During the boot-up phase, I do get the Windows XP (home version)
screen and that bar going across the middle of the screen, but then
instead of bringing up my desktop, the screen goes blank.

Booting to Last Known Good Configuration results in the same.

Booting to Safe Mode gives me a bunch of lines of
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2), etc ...

... and it hangs up when it gets to Drivers\agpCPQ.sys

I don't know if it's stuck on this one or the one after.

Booting to VGA mode gives me the blank screen as well.

I haven't done a repair to Windows yet, as I wanted to exhaust my
other options first.

What to do?

Thanks in advance.

- Ron

Further investigation has the system actually locking up on the next
driver, rather than agpcpq. My ACPI fails to load. How do I get past
this? Can I reload just the ACPI from the Windows XP disk?

Thanks.

 

[Rock]

Further investigation has the system actually locking up on the next
driver, rather than agpcpq. My ACPI fails to load. How do I get past
this? Can I reload just the ACPI from the Windows XP disk?

Do you have a full and complete backup of important data? If so skip to the
repair install. If not do that first ( and while doing so ask yourself the
question, why didn't I have a backup. Always having a full and complete
backup should be a given in computers.) Just because a drive can't boot
doesn't mean you can't retrieve the data, it's just more work. Here are
some ways to backup the data for a drive that will not boot.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

Once the data is backed up you could try a repair install. This should
preserve data and programs. You'll need to revisit Windows update to get
all the post SP2 updates again (assuming your system is at the SP2 level).
See this link:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Lastly, problems with computers are to be expected. Whether it's windows
update causing a problem, or malware or a horked software install, or a bad
driver, or hardware failure - it happens. The best thing you can do, in my
opinion, is to put in place a tested backup and recovery solution that
allows you to quickly recover the system if there is a problem. This would
be one example.

I recommend a drive imaging program, such as Acronis True Image Home,
version 10, to image the system to an external hard drive (connected by USB,
Firewire or eSata). Images can be full, incremental or differential (saving
time and space on subsequent images), images can be on a drive or partition
basis, and restores can be done on a file, partition or drive basis. ATI
also does file backup and disk cloning.

You can buy preassembled external hard drives or put one together at much
less cost. Take a bare drive and put it in an external drive enclosure
(these are low cost - in the $20 range). The cost for drive plus enclosure
for a 320GB external set up is under $100.

Regularly image the system and make sure you have a current image before
doing updates, or software/hardware installs. If something damages the
installation and you can't fix it, can restore the most recent image and be
back to normal in an hour or so.

 

[Ronald]

Do you have a full and complete backup of important data? If so skip to the
repair install. If not do that first ( and while doing so ask yourself the
question, why didn't I have a backup. Always having a full and complete
backup should be a given in computers.) Just because a drive can't boot
doesn't mean you can't retrieve the data, it's just more work. Here are
some ways to backup the data for a drive that will not boot.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

Once the data is backed up you could try a repair install. This should
preserve data and programs. You'll need to revisit Windows update to get
all the post SP2 updates again (assuming your system is at the SP2 level).
See this link:http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Lastly, problems with computers are to be expected. Whether it's windows
update causing a problem, or malware or a horked software install, or a bad
driver, or hardware failure - it happens. The best thing you can do, in my
opinion, is to put in place a tested backup and recovery solution that
allows you to quickly recover the system if there is a problem. This would
be one example.

I recommend a drive imaging program, such as Acronis True Image Home,
version 10, to image the system to an external hard drive (connected by USB,
Firewire or eSata). Images can be full, incremental or differential (saving
time and space on subsequent images), images can be on a drive or partition
basis, and restores can be done on a file, partition or drive basis. ATI
also does file backup and disk cloning.

You can buy preassembled external hard drives or put one together at much
less cost. Take a bare drive and put it in an external drive enclosure
(these are low cost - in the $20 range). The cost for drive plus enclosure
for a 320GB external set up is under $100.

Regularly image the system and make sure you have a current image before
doing updates, or software/hardware installs. If something damages the
installation and you can't fix it, can restore the most recent image and be
back to normal in an hour or so.

Thank you for your adivce.

I know I should always have a backup, but for one reason or another, I
had neglected to do so.

I tried to perform a Windows repair, but it had an error and I got
stuck in a loop. Windows couldn't repair the OS, so it would reboot,
and then it would continure the repair, have an error, reboot, etc ...

Ultimately, I did connect the HD as an external drive on my old
desktop machine and retruieved my data. I used Dell's utility to
restore the "shipped from factory" settings. After another day of
reistalling software, I think I'm good to go again.

 

[Rock]

Thank you for your adivce.

I know I should always have a backup, but for one reason or another, I
had neglected to do so.

I tried to perform a Windows repair, but it had an error and I got
stuck in a loop. Windows couldn't repair the OS, so it would reboot,
and then it would continure the repair, have an error, reboot, etc ...

Ultimately, I did connect the HD as an external drive on my old
desktop machine and retruieved my data. I used Dell's utility to
restore the "shipped from factory" settings. After another day of
reistalling software, I think I'm good to go again.

You're welcome. Ok, sorry it had to get down to that, but glad you got it
fixed, and thanks for updating with the outcome. Look into the drive
imaging backup solution to give you measure a protection in the future.