G
Guest
I'm stuck in the xp boot loop from hell. No specific error messages, just
won't bring up xp!
One of our 4 computers is an Emachines 900mhz celeron box mostly used for
our kids games, running OEM winxp home SP1, updates current to 7/19/04, and
MacAfee AV 8 as well as spybot and spywareblaster. No recent hardware or
software changes. We just shipped the box UPS in the original packing cross
country when we returned from sabbatical. I unpacked it all, and it worked
fine for a week. Then my son turned it off by pushing the power button. It
started up fine, but then wouldn't recognize the CD-ROM. (or maybe it was
the CD-ROM prob 1st, then the power-off). Upon re-booting, we get the black
winxp flag screen with the green dots for 5 secs, then the Emachines logo
white screen, then the "windows was not shut down properly...please choose
one of the options" screen.
The machine won't boot with ANY of the options. No safe mode, normal boot,
LNG, etc. I tried f8 as well, but no luck booting from here either. I can't
get past the "windows was not shut down properly" screen. When I choose
safemode, I DO get a list of all the .sys files displayed on screen as part
of the boot loop. I tried using an xp boot disk I made on another machine
(xp pro SP2 with floppy containing basic boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and
ntldr.ini), but that didn't work. Maybe I need a bootdisk made from an XP
home machine? I went into BIOS setup and all seems ok. The boot sequence
goes thru my CD-ROM, then floppy, and HDD, and even the HDD light comes on.
I'll pop the box open and re-seat all cables and memory and blow out any
dust tonight. Maybe the UPS trip unseated something? But assuming this
isn't the problem:
All I have is the EMachines OEM restore CD-ROM which will likely wipe the
HDD and do a fresh install. Before going that far, I'd like to at least try
to back up some personal stuff off the drive 1st. And I'd like to back up
the registry, WPA, etc. But I can't get into the drive to do anything!
Can I read the HDD as a slave in a Win98SE machine? XP Pro machine? so I
can back it up first?
Can I "borrow" a friend's XP Home CD and try an xp home repair install (not
a recovery console)?
Should I buy a new HDD and use the OEM CD-ROM to do a fresh xp home install
on it and then do all the updates and try using my old HDD as a slave?
Or should I just cave in and pay the professionals to diagnose and fix or at
least recover the important stuff from the HDD?
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions! My kids want their games back.
-Kurt
won't bring up xp!
One of our 4 computers is an Emachines 900mhz celeron box mostly used for
our kids games, running OEM winxp home SP1, updates current to 7/19/04, and
MacAfee AV 8 as well as spybot and spywareblaster. No recent hardware or
software changes. We just shipped the box UPS in the original packing cross
country when we returned from sabbatical. I unpacked it all, and it worked
fine for a week. Then my son turned it off by pushing the power button. It
started up fine, but then wouldn't recognize the CD-ROM. (or maybe it was
the CD-ROM prob 1st, then the power-off). Upon re-booting, we get the black
winxp flag screen with the green dots for 5 secs, then the Emachines logo
white screen, then the "windows was not shut down properly...please choose
one of the options" screen.
The machine won't boot with ANY of the options. No safe mode, normal boot,
LNG, etc. I tried f8 as well, but no luck booting from here either. I can't
get past the "windows was not shut down properly" screen. When I choose
safemode, I DO get a list of all the .sys files displayed on screen as part
of the boot loop. I tried using an xp boot disk I made on another machine
(xp pro SP2 with floppy containing basic boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and
ntldr.ini), but that didn't work. Maybe I need a bootdisk made from an XP
home machine? I went into BIOS setup and all seems ok. The boot sequence
goes thru my CD-ROM, then floppy, and HDD, and even the HDD light comes on.
I'll pop the box open and re-seat all cables and memory and blow out any
dust tonight. Maybe the UPS trip unseated something? But assuming this
isn't the problem:
All I have is the EMachines OEM restore CD-ROM which will likely wipe the
HDD and do a fresh install. Before going that far, I'd like to at least try
to back up some personal stuff off the drive 1st. And I'd like to back up
the registry, WPA, etc. But I can't get into the drive to do anything!
Can I read the HDD as a slave in a Win98SE machine? XP Pro machine? so I
can back it up first?
Can I "borrow" a friend's XP Home CD and try an xp home repair install (not
a recovery console)?
Should I buy a new HDD and use the OEM CD-ROM to do a fresh xp home install
on it and then do all the updates and try using my old HDD as a slave?
Or should I just cave in and pay the professionals to diagnose and fix or at
least recover the important stuff from the HDD?
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions! My kids want their games back.
-Kurt