Help wanted

[J.C.De]

My friend after using his computer (windows xp pro) for a while, went for
system restore. Suddenly his computer monitor turned to a black screen with
a frozen cursor.
He could not come out of black screen by any means. Finally he had to close
down the computer via power switch. Restarting the computer results in the
same result. Trying with safe boot also yields no result. After welcome,
screen turns black with hung cursor.
He also does not have his xp cd.
Is there any way he can come out of this problem?
Help will be highly appreciated.


In case problem cannot be solved he will have to freshly install with new
cd.
In that case I will be highly obliged if somebody will advice me how to
reinstall xp step by step,so that I can help him to reinstall.

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Try using 'Last Known Good Configuration' - access is via the same screen as
Safe Mode.

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, J.C.

In that case I will be highly obliged if somebody will advice me how to
reinstall xp step by step,so that I can help him to reinstall.

That's easy enough...
Step 1: Boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and follow the prompts.

There is no Step 2 - except to visit Windows Update as soon as possible
after you get your firewall and antivirus working to be sure that you have
SP2 and the latest protective fixes. And to reinstall all your friend's
applications from their CDs or other original media, and restore his data
from backups. He DOES have backups, doesn't he?

But that might not be necessary; you probably should try a few other things
first. A clean install can reformat the HD, wiping out all your friend's
files, including perhaps irreplaceable data. Before doing that, at least
try an "in-place upgrade", which will reinstall WinXP itself, but preserve
installed applications and data - and most of the tweaks. For official
instructions for how to do this, see this KB article:
How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341

You might prefer this version of the same instructions by MVP Michael
Stevens:
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Note that this reinstalls the version of WinXP that is on the CD used; if
the CD does not have SP2 integrated, then you will need to add SP2 after the
installation.

If the in-place upgrade doesn't work, THEN you can reinstall from scratch.

RC

 

[Richard Urban]

He does NOT have his CD (-:

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[J.C.De]

He has tried 'last known good configuration', with same result.
Only thing he has not tried is using command prompt, as he does not know how
to proceed with it.
Unfortunately he does not have Winxp CD-ROM to boot from.
Question is can he boot from a new WinXP CD-ROM and proceed ahead.
Or he has to format his hard disc first and go ahead with fresh install?
If he has to format hard disc first how can he go about it?
Please advice.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Without knowing what is causing the problem or any way of diagnosing it, the
solution will have to be a repair installation. He will need access to an XP
disk, then can preform the steps outlined here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

This will preserve the user accounts, data, and programs - there is no need
to format.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Jagdish Chandra]

Thanx Rick,
What I would like to know is that repair installation will be possible with
new disc or he will have to freshly format the hard disc and reinstall xp.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Richard.

Well, he did say:
But he also said:
And that last sentence is what I was responding to, in which case he would
have that "new cd". Maybe I should have been more explicit about this
point.

RC

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

| Thanx Rick,
| What I would like to know is that repair installation will be possible
with
| new disc or he will have to freshly format the hard disc and reinstall xp.
|

The only way to know for sure is to try it. If the repair install works,
then there probably won't be any need for a clean install.

 

[J.C.De]

As per your advice visited
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
and went through it. I also went through the article by Charlie White's
'Windows XP Crashed ?' The crash was referred as BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)
in the article.
Is there any difference between Blue screen and black screen because
my friends screen has turned black and not blue.
Regards.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, J.C.

Yes, there's a big difference between a BSOD and a black screen.

Whenever a "crash" is caused by software (an application program, or a
utility, or a device driver - or by the operating system itself), WinXP
writes a coded explanation of just what the problem seemed to be. It writes
this into a log on your hard drive. The log is quite long and detailed and
indecipherable to most of us lamen. It also puts a one-page explanation on
our monitor, using bright white text on a blue background. We call this the
Blue Screen of Death because (a) it's blue and (b) the computer is halted
(dead) at this point and must be restarted; there's no way to continue or
even to recover unsaved work. This screen is also cryptic to the
uninformed, but it usually is a great help to experts - and even to
non-expert experienced users of Windows.

There is a setting within WinXP for what the computer should do on "System
failure". By default, this is set to "Automatically restart". Unless we
change it, the BSOD appears and disappears so quickly that we never get to
see it before the reboot. To change it, go to System Properties | Advanced
| Startup and Recovery/Settings and remove the check from the Automatically
restart box. Next time, the computer will halt with the BSOD onscreen.
You'll still have to reboot, but you'll have all the time you need to copy
down those codes so that you can look them up yourself or post them here
where some guru (not me!) can point you in the right direction.

If the "crash" is caused by a hardware problem, then WinXP doesn't get a
chance to write the BSOD - just like if you had abruptly "pulled the plug".
That's when we usually see a black screen. Black screens also can happen
during the boot process when an unmanageable problem occurs before WinXP
gets loaded to the point where it can produce the error codes. These black
screens can be caused by either hardware or operating system errors. That's
why we often ask users reporting such problems to tell us, step by step,
what happens from the time they turn on the power switch until the black
screen appears, so that we can figure out whether the problem is in Windows
or in the hardware and BIOS before Windows even starts to load.

Hardware problems run the full gamut: electrical shorts, perhaps in cables
and connectors; heat buildup; improper switch and jumper settings; failed
video cards; bad power supplies - and many others. There's nothing
Microsoft or Windows can do about these problems, of course. Either the
user or the hardware vendor must solve them, but we can sometimes suggest
where to look to diagnose the situation.

Your first post said the problem happened when your friend "went for system
restore", but you didn't say why a SR was thought to be needed. What kind
of problem made him think SR would help? Might it have been a clue as to
why the black screen happened on the reboot? Perhaps the SR had nothing to
do with the crash, which was just waiting to happen on the next boot, no
matter what.

You said you visited Michael Stevens' page "and went through it". You
didn't say you actually tried the reinstall. Did you? If you can do that,
it should completely reinstall WinXP. But if there is a hardware problem,
you may not be able to do it.

Will that computer boot from the CD-ROM now? If so, put the WinXP CD-ROM
in, boot from it, and follow the prompts, as I said before. If it will not
boot from the CD, then post back with a step-by-step description of what
happens.

RC

 

[J.C.De]

Thanks to you all for your valuable advice.
Sent the whole conversation thread to him.
I hope it will help him to get back his computer in action.