Help! endless boot- check disk loop

[Guest]

I am trying to install XP home upgrade over windows ME. The install seemed to
go ok but when I turned it off and tried to restart it went into an endless
boot-check disk cycle. It boots, goes through the bios set-up,gets to the XP
screen then goes to check disk. During the check it says it is removing
"trailing folder entrys" then reboots again. I let it run about 4 hours
thinking that it "fix" the error and work but no luck. I backed up my hard
drive to another drive and I can still boot to ME on that drive so I don't
think that my computer is bad. It is a HP with a p4 1.3 gig processor,512
ram, 120 hard drive. Any help would be appreciated. PS, it has created over
175 files in the windows folder named dumpxxx, all with 88kb. Thanks!

 

[Rich Barry]

Take a look at this mskb Article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316639/

 

[Guest]

I got it to display the bsod. The error message is stop: 0x0000007e( 4
different parameters)
It also says vsdatant.sys address baaa24do base at baa90000, datestamp
4419a4ed
Any help please? The mskb article was not much help!

 

[John John]

Boot into Safe-Mode and disable Zone Alarm software and see what happens.

John

 

[Guest]

When I boot in safe mode I get a black screen that says "safe mode" in the 4
corners but I can't make it do anything else. I did go in the hard drive from
my other drive and I think that I deleted all the Zone alarm stuff that I
could find. Now it does the xp screen, check disk,then the bsod with the
error messages, counts to 100 and does it again over and over till I stop it.
I am truely puzzeled.

 

[John John]

Boot to the Recovery Console and use the LISTSVC command to view
services their start type. Ues the DISABLE command to disable
vsdatant.sys. For help in the Recovery Console type: HELP. For help
on specific commands type help commandname, example: HELP LISTSVC.

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

John

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much, that was exactly what I had to do! Now I have 1 more
question. Should I go into add/remove programs and remove the zone alarm and
if so should I use the windows firewall or something else? Thank you !!

 

[John John]

You could try to uninstall it but being that you remotely accessed the
drive and removed all the ZA files you may not be able to unistall it.
You *definitely* need a firewall! You cannot securely run Windows XP
without a firewall. I am not overly fond of the Windows XP firewall but
it will effectively protect you from inbound intrusions. For all it's
worth, even though Zone Alarm is very popular I am even less fond of it!
It is known to be problematic at times. My personal favorites for
firewalls were Kerio and Sygate. Kerio is now Sunbelt and they have a
fairly good free personal firewall. Sygate had a very good personal
firewall but they were acquired by Symantec, yuck! By now Symantec
should have properly and completely screwed all Sygate products! If you
search hard enough on the net you might find a site somewhere that still
has a pre-Symantec Sygate download available.

John