clean install of XP, but with problem on startup

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Guest

owing to a BSOD and a corrupt 'C' drive etc (when nothing had changed!). I
performed a reformat and clean install of XP(SP2) from my recovery CD. All
went well and now starting again, installed drivers etc, and all high
priority updates from MS site. Several restarts without problem.
Left system running for a few hours, went back to it, brought it out of idle
mode to find just the 'blue background', no menu or icons!, tried restart -
same problem.
can get into 'safe mode' and all there, but will not complete that final
phase of booting up!.
Would be grateful for any suggestions on this.
Many thanks
 
Hi

Boot into Safe Mode and have a look at the Event Viewer for any 'Errors'.
If any are found could you please post the Event ID and Source?
 
Thanks, I will try that, but not at that PC until later this afternoon.
Will report and send as requested.
grateful thanks
 
In addition to Will's suggestion, running a chkdsk /r would be highly
advisable. I hope you did that before reformatting also. It sounds very
possible that you have a failing hard drive.
 
Thank you GTS for your suggestion also to Will's.
Unfortunately, I failed to do a chkdsk prior to reformatting as it did not
occur to me, oops!, so I will do one this evening and report back.
It did cross my mind that it may be the hard drive, but hoped this
re-install would cure the problem.
Be back soon - many thanks
( if you have any other suggestions to checking out the hard drive - would
be grateful for them ).
 
You're welcome.
re. other drive tests - Most drive manufacturers have a downloadable utility
for testing their drives. These are a good way to go. They may require a
floppy boot. If you don't have a floppy drive there are other options (e.g.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ )
Some computers, such as recent Dells, have built in diagnostics accessible
in the boot process or from the BIOS, including a drive test.
--
 
Hi GTS & Wills - this is my report!
Firstly, a hard disk test "chkdsk /r" - message: "found & fixed one or more
errors on the volume" - restarted, but same problem.

Secondly, "Event viewer" (over 2 days of problems), both days reported as
follows:
error-source:DCOM Cat:none event:10005 user:system ( 3 times )
error-source:Service Control Manager Cat:none event:7026 user: n/a ( once ).

Thirdly, Hard Drive is Maxtor 7Y250M0 SCSI HD, went to Maxtor site and found
two diagnostic utilities, one PowerMax I think was wrong one!, SCSIMAX would
only run with ASCI driver - I got stuck here - less knowledge!.

Finally, safe mode - system restore - back to new install and device drivers
only, but NO windows Security & High Priority Updates - and I'm back in!.

Sorry for the long-winded message, but hopefully you helpful chaps can glean
something from the above to advise the next move, could it be a Win update of
some sort?, not happened before, but always first time!.
By the way, "Event Viewer" after this restore had no errors to report!.

Look forward to your comments and many thanks!
Graham
 
That chkdsk result is fairly routine and probably OK. The main concern was
whether it would report any bad sectors. (The results of chkdsk are shown
in event viewer under Application / Winlogon event if you want to see it
again.) PowerMax is the more common Maxtor utility - used for IDE drives.
SCSIMAX is for SCSI drives which aren't all that common on home PC's. You
didn't say what the problem was with PowerMAX so I don't know what else to
say on that.

I haven't found any specific reference to those error codes. I would keep
an eye on the event log. It's a good sign that they haven't recurred and
may indicate things are OK now. It's hard to be sure at this point why your
system crashed so badly. A conflict with some Windows update is a
possibility. You might want to do those a few at a time now and see how it
goes.
--

GBW said:
Hi GTS & Wills - this is my report!
Firstly, a hard disk test "chkdsk /r" - message: "found & fixed one or
more
errors on the volume" - restarted, but same problem.

Secondly, "Event viewer" (over 2 days of problems), both days reported as
follows:
error-source:DCOM Cat:none event:10005 user:system ( 3 times )
error-source:Service Control Manager Cat:none event:7026 user: n/a (
once ).

Thirdly, Hard Drive is Maxtor 7Y250M0 SCSI HD, went to Maxtor site and
found
two diagnostic utilities, one PowerMax I think was wrong one!, SCSIMAX
would
only run with ASCI driver - I got stuck here - less knowledge!.

Finally, safe mode - system restore - back to new install and device
drivers
only, but NO windows Security & High Priority Updates - and I'm back in!.

Sorry for the long-winded message, but hopefully you helpful chaps can
glean
something from the above to advise the next move, could it be a Win update
of
some sort?, not happened before, but always first time!.
By the way, "Event Viewer" after this restore had no errors to report!.

Look forward to your comments and many thanks!
Graham
Click to expand...

<SNIP>
 
thanks for your reply, I will have to wait until I get home this evenng to
see if all is still running OK. As it was late last night I missed passing on
info which may have been of use.
I thought PowerMax was the wrong one as I tried it and could not understand
the result, consequently, I have read Maxtor's site today in more detail and
it is the right one as my HDD is an ATA serial model. So I will run this test
later.
one other puzzle was, reading the BIOS, the Primary Master & Slave said 'not
recognised' I think? and the Secondary M & S had my CD drives on. I thought
this odd at the time and must look at this again and change them to "Auto"
and see what happens. This might be also why the PowerMax gave me odd
readings.

Will take your advice on installing updates a few at a time, especially as
with a new install, this totalled 29!, I'm getting in the habit of a Sys
Restore nearly every time I do something, as this got me back, I hope to a
good point last night.

thanks again and will report back.
 
OK, the story so far!
all booted up OK last night, completed settings, installed AVG.
installed all high-priority updates from MS in blocks of 4, each with a Sys
Restore.
all booted up OK and nothing to report in Event Viewer.
multiple restarts and all fine. switched off till morning.
power up today - froze at Win XP screen!, got into Safe Mode, Event Viewer
reports another DCOM with Event code: 10005.
Did not have time to do a Restore and see what happens, will have to wait
until this evening.
Bit baffled as what to do next?.
Question:
although the HDD is listed during 'boot up' sequence and also if I go into
BIOS, it's also listed in the 'Boot up' section, but still not listed under
Primary Master, it always says "not available", is this important as the HD
seems to be working OK?.
or could this be part of the problem?.

Not sure how to proceed now, so would be grateful for any suggestions.
Thanks again.
 
Curiouser and curiouser... It is odd that the hard drive doesn't show as
Primary Master, but I tend to doubt that's the problem since Windows does
start to load and since you were running it that way in the past. Before
doing a system restore, what I would try next is disconnecting all
peripherals other than the monitor, keyboard, and mouse and seeing if that
makes a difference. I recently serviced a machine that was acting exactly
like yours and found the problem involved, of all things, a certain parallel
port connected printer. The fact that it does consistently boot in safe
mode implies either a device driver or software conflict. If that makes no
difference, I would also run msconfig and try a selective startup without
loading startup items.

DCOM errors are often very difficult to analyze, and often seem to be
harmless. I found a lot of mention of this one but no indication of it
being known to cause a boot failure.
--
 
Hi GTS
I'm back and sorry not to reply but been away on business.
I decided with still various problems to do a complete reformat, partition
and clean install of XP. This has all gone well and nothing unusual and event
viewer now shows no problems.
One odd problem that is happening is that if I power up the pc, it loads ok
and goes into the desktop with icons etc, but if I do a restart, all goes
well until the very last moment when I do not get to the desktop or icons but
the HDD is buzzing away!.
If I shut down, it all loads fine, it sometimes does not complete that final
step, also I returned to the pc after a break and got the desktop background
colour, but nothing else!.
Odd after a new install, maybe just a setting?, any ideas please.
Hopefully something easy!!.
Grateful for your help again. Thanks
 
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