Fails to start

[Guest]

My Windows XP Home PC won't load XP. After pressing the on button it gets to
the XP icon screen where on a good start up the rectangle fills in with blue
boxes. It does this just for a second and than goes to an apology screen
with choices for safemode, safemode with networking or command prompt.
Nothing works no matter what choice is used. It just repeats this sequence
over and over till i turn it off. Is the hard drive defective?
Thanks,
John M

 

[Rock]

My Windows XP Home PC won't load XP. After pressing the on button it gets
to
the XP icon screen where on a good start up the rectangle fills in with
blue
boxes. It does this just for a second and than goes to an apology
screen
with choices for safemode, safemode with networking or command prompt.
Nothing works no matter what choice is used. It just repeats this
sequence
over and over till i turn it off. Is the hard drive defective?

Do you have a backup of the important data that's on the hard drive? If not
do that first. Put the drive in another working XP or Win2000 computer and
copy the important data. Then put it back in the original computer, boot
from the XP installation CD and take the first R. This will get you to the
recovery console. Select the installation by number. For the password
assume it's blank for the built in Administrator account (this is not the
account with admin privileges you have been using but the built in account
by that name) and just hit enter or tab. If you assigned a password to this
account then enter that.

At the command prompt run chkdsk /p. It will take awhile.

Here is a link on how to use the Recovery Console. You don't need to
install it, just see the section on how to use it if you want to get some
reference into on it.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654/en-us

After chkdsk runs exit the recovery console, remove the CD and reboot.

If that doesn't do it, run a repair install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[Guest]

I tried booting up from the Win XP CDROM but when I hit the "R" key, the
message is " A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to
prevent damage to your computer." If I remove the hard drive and put it
another PC, will that PC be able to see a second hard drive or is it to far
gone to attempt at this point?
John M

 

[Rock]

I tried booting up from the Win XP CDROM but when I hit the "R" key,
the
message is " A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to
prevent damage to your computer." If I remove the hard drive and put it
another PC, will that PC be able to see a second hard drive or is it to
far
gone to attempt at this point?
John M

Whether your hard drive will be readable in another system is hard to say.
The only way to know is to try. If it's readable, after copying any
important data, run a chkdsk /r from that computer.

I don't understand why you were getting that message when trying to enter
the recovery console from the installation boot up. Windows isn't loaded at
that point. Are you sure you booted from a regular installation CD and set
the boot order in the BIOS for the CD drive to be the first device in the
boot order? What message appeared on the screen right before you pressed
the R key?

 

[Ayush]

Replied to [John M.]s message :
-----------------------------------------------------------

I tried booting up from the Win XP CDROM but when I hit the "R"
key, the message is " A problem has been detected and Windows has
been shut down to prevent damage to your computer." If I remove the
hard drive and put it another PC, will that PC be able to see a
second hard drive or is it to far gone to attempt at this point?
John M

When you pressed R, it tried to read the hard disk and then a STOP ERROR. It is a
sign of bad hard disk. What was the error code ?

 

[Rock]

I bought a new hard disk and installed it in the same PC. I disconnected
the
one in trouble and installed WIN XP with no problems. Today I tried
setting
the new one up as a master and the bad one as a slave on the same IDE
cable
and the "fails to start" trouble reappeared. I thought the good drive
would
see the bad one and I coud recover data and then format it. After
disconneted th bad drive the PC worked Ok with the new drive again.
John

When XP was installed on the new drive had the old drive been removed from
the system, the new drive set up as Master on the primary IDE channel and XP
installed? Then did you turn off the computer, install the old drive as
slave on the primary IDE channel and jumper both drives to reflect this new
setup? Sometimes the jumper settings on the back of the drive are different
depending on if there is only one drive as Master or if there is a Master
with a slave device present.