boot failure - blanl screen. hangs at mup.sys

[Guest]

I have a client computer that is unable to boot. POST's fine, all hardware
checks out. however, once into the next section, just as it goes into the
"loading" screen the screen just sort of blanks out, and there is no further
disk activity. I tried booting into safe mode but the system stops when
parsing mup.sys.

Considering this a MBR error or similar I tried to use the XP CD to either
use the recovery console or repair windows. However, the process hangs at the
point where the screen indicates "system is starting windows". This occurs
whether I use the boot floppies or the CD.

The system is using SP1.

I tried to start BartPE and it too blanks the screen out with no further
activity at the point where the screen would normally indicate "loading
windows" which may be a clue to the cause.

Has anyone got an idea in what direction to look in?

Thanks

 

[Malke]

I have a client computer that is unable to boot. POST's fine, all
hardware checks out. however, once into the next section, just as it
goes into the "loading" screen the screen just sort of blanks out, and
there is no further disk activity. I tried booting into safe mode but
the system stops when parsing mup.sys.

Considering this a MBR error or similar I tried to use the XP CD to
either use the recovery console or repair windows. However, the
process hangs at the point where the screen indicates "system is
starting windows". This occurs whether I use the boot floppies or the
CD.

The system is using SP1.

I tried to start BartPE and it too blanks the screen out with no
further activity at the point where the screen would normally indicate
"loading windows" which may be a clue to the cause.

Has anyone got an idea in what direction to look in?

Thanks

I hate those kinds of problems, don't you? When you say "all hardware
checks out", what exactly do you mean? What tests did you run?

Malke

 

[Malke]

I sure do.
As for tests, I swapped out the RAM and the VGA card, which are the
only two peripherals installed and the error still occured. The HDD is
still working and the data is still intact. They of course do not have
any backups, so I am loathe to scrub the disk and start again (which
at this point is problematic anyway, as setup won't run) but it's
really the next step. However, I don't want to do this until I am
fairly sure that it is not a hardware issue and that it won't occur
again.

Well, I just had a box like that and it turned out to be the processor.
So, I do think it might be a hardware problem. One way to tell if it's
hardware or Windows is to boot with Knoppix, a Linux distro that runs
from cd. If everything runs beautifully in Linux, then you know for
sure the problem is with Windows. If it is b0rked under the foreign
operating system too, you know it's hardware. Another advantage of
using Knoppix is if the box has two cd drives, one of which is a cd-rw,
you can rescue the data to a cd-r with the burning program k3b. Of
course, if it's hardware, you can just pull the drive and slave it in a
working XP box.

Good luck, and my sympathies,

Malke

 

[Guest]

Well, I just had a box like that and it turned out to be the processor.
So, I do think it might be a hardware problem. One way to tell if it's
hardware or Windows is to boot with Knoppix, a Linux distro that runs
from cd. If everything runs beautifully in Linux, then you know for
sure the problem is with Windows. If it is b0rked under the foreign
operating system too, you know it's hardware. Another advantage of
using Knoppix is if the box has two cd drives, one of which is a cd-rw,
you can rescue the data to a cd-r with the burning program k3b. Of
course, if it's hardware, you can just pull the drive and slave it in a
working XP box.

Good luck, and my sympathies,

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

I just got around to trying that very idea. Lo and behold, knoppix won't
start either, at the "equivalent" sort of spot that the windows error
occured. so it's definately hardware.
Thanks for the help, at least now I am on the right track.

 

[Malke]

I just got around to trying that very idea. Lo and behold, knoppix
won't start either, at the "equivalent" sort of spot that the windows
error occured. so it's definately hardware.
Thanks for the help, at least now I am on the right track.

Glad to have been of service. Best of luck to you,

Malke

 

[Guest]

Glad to have been of service. Best of luck to you,

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

Just to let you know how I went and to get this in the record (I have seen a
lot of posts about this, but none with any resolution offered) I followed up
the "Knoppix" test by swapping in a new CPU, as this was the next
cheapest/easiest option. The system booted straight away, with no data loss.
Thanks again for the assist.