Hanging on boot (2 places)

[Guest]

Hello,

I have a WinXP PC that sometimes hangs when it's booting, in two spots.
Hang 1 is after the initial BIOS load, when the "Windows XP" screen is just
coming up. You can make it out, very faintly on the black background.

Hang 2 is in the middle of the boot process, with the "Windows XP" screen
fully up and the three blue boxes racing each other across the screen like
the eye of an old Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Only the Cylon's eye
stops moving, the hard drive stops accessing (no light, no sounds) and it'll
stay there indefinitely.

In either case, repeated hard resets will eventually bring the PC back up.
What are the most likely culprits here? What should I start checking in
order to resolve these issues?

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:05:01 -0700, "Nobody Important"

I have a WinXP PC that sometimes hangs when it's booting, in two spots.
Hang 1 is after the initial BIOS load, when the "Windows XP" screen is just
coming up. You can make it out, very faintly on the black background.

OK, that's probably early in the OS's PnP discovery, setting up
drivers, etc. but past the "which partition do I boot" stuff.

Hang 2 is in the middle of the boot process, with the "Windows XP" screen
fully up and the three blue boxes racing each other across the screen like
the eye of an old Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Only the Cylon's eye
stops moving, the hard drive stops accessing (no light, no sounds) and it'll
stay there indefinitely.

That sounds like the classic Prescott vs. XP2 crisis, except that hits
100%, whereas yours sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

In either case, repeated hard resets will eventually bring the PC back up.
What are the most likely culprits here? What should I start checking in
order to resolve these issues?

I'd suspect hardware, and if I had one shot at the jackpot without any
chance to ask questions, I'd guess bad motherboard capacitors.

You might try the following:
- unplug all external devices
- try Safe Mode
- try Safe Mode Cmd Only
- try normal mode with all StartUp items disabled via MSConfig

I would too, but only after doing this:
- checking motherboard capacitors, processor fans, etc.
- testing RAM with MemTest86 (Google for free download)
- checking the HD for physical errors (not ChkDsk; I use HD-Tune)
- checking the HD's file system logic and free space
- formally excluding active malware (I use Bart PE, etc. [*1] )

[*1] ...and I do mean a BIG "etc."

Clickfood:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/pccrisis.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/badcaps.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/whatmos.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/reinst.htm [*2]

[*2] Do NOT try a blind "just re-install Windows" !!

Good luck, stay in touch (if circumstances allow)

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The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope