Only boots up after CHKDSK

[scootrobertson]

This is a strange one, thats been bugging me for a few days.
Hopefully someone can shed some light.

Running Win XP Home SP2, and the machine has been hanging on the
welcome screen on startup, and then spouting various errors like:

userinit.exe - failed to initialize
explorer.exe - failed to initialize
lsass.exe - registry entry could not be read/written to etc...
taskmgr.exe - failed to initialize, vdmdbg.dll cannot be found.

So, I can't get into windows, unless (and this is weird), a CHKDSK is
run, and then the next reboot is successful! The system seems to
decide itself when a CHKDSK is required.

Things I have tried:

*. Boot into Safe Mode - sometimes it works, others it doesn't. If I
choose Administrator on user selection screen in safe mode, it just
hangs when 'getting the preferences' etc... Choosing 'Owner' mostly
works.
*. I have run Norton AntiVirus scans when I get into windows, all
clear. I've run Sypot and Adaware too, all clear.
*. Done a disk defrag, pc doctor tests (motherboard etc...), all
clear.
*. Removed all Startup items using msconfig, restarts fine and boots
up, but won't boot properly after a shutdown/power down! So I don't
think it's the Startup items where the problem is.
*. Check for the wasupdater.exe problem, but userinit.exe entries in
the registry are ok.

I recently installed windows defender, and I think thats when the
problems started. I also recently installed Office 2003, and got all
the updates installed too from Automatic Updates. I un-installed
Defender, but problem still there. Could be an Office - XP issue? Is
it worth replacing these exe's (userinit, explorer) with originals
using XP recovery console expand command?

Any ideas?

Thanks!
S.

 

[Steve Parry]

In

This is a strange one, thats been bugging me for a few days.
Hopefully someone can shed some light.

Running Win XP Home SP2, and the machine has been hanging on the
welcome screen on startup, and then spouting various errors like:

userinit.exe - failed to initialize
explorer.exe - failed to initialize
lsass.exe - registry entry could not be read/written to etc...
taskmgr.exe - failed to initialize, vdmdbg.dll cannot be found.

So, I can't get into windows, unless (and this is weird), a CHKDSK is
run, and then the next reboot is successful! The system seems to
decide itself when a CHKDSK is required.

Things I have tried:

*. Boot into Safe Mode - sometimes it works, others it doesn't. If I
choose Administrator on user selection screen in safe mode, it just
hangs when 'getting the preferences' etc... Choosing 'Owner' mostly
works.
*. I have run Norton AntiVirus scans when I get into windows, all
clear. I've run Sypot and Adaware too, all clear.
*. Done a disk defrag, pc doctor tests (motherboard etc...), all
clear.
*. Removed all Startup items using msconfig, restarts fine and boots
up, but won't boot properly after a shutdown/power down! So I don't
think it's the Startup items where the problem is.
*. Check for the wasupdater.exe problem, but userinit.exe entries in
the registry are ok.

I recently installed windows defender, and I think thats when the
problems started. I also recently installed Office 2003, and got all
the updates installed too from Automatic Updates. I un-installed
Defender, but problem still there. Could be an Office - XP issue? Is
it worth replacing these exe's (userinit, explorer) with originals
using XP recovery console expand command?

Any ideas?

Thanks!
S.

Sounds like you could have some failing hardware, maybe a hard drive that's
going bad?

Out of interest try slowing down the transfer rate of your hard drives
Primary channel and if the options available in the policies tab of your
hard drive disable write caching.

 

[scootrobertson]

I'll try that, thanks.

(e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> wibbled













going bad?

Out of interest try slowing down the transfer rate of your hard drives
Primary channel and if the options available in the policies tab of your
hard drive disable write caching.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

What is the make and model of the drive?

I would try HD Tune (freeware).
Download and run it and see what it turns up.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy
to Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Also do a full surface
scan with HD Tune.


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[scootrobertson]

Not sure of the drive off the top of my head, I'll try HDTune tonight,
see what happens.

thanks again.

 

[Rock]

This is a strange one, thats been bugging me for a few days.
Hopefully someone can shed some light.

Running Win XP Home SP2, and the machine has been hanging on the
welcome screen on startup, and then spouting various errors like:

userinit.exe - failed to initialize
explorer.exe - failed to initialize
lsass.exe - registry entry could not be read/written to etc...
taskmgr.exe - failed to initialize, vdmdbg.dll cannot be found.

So, I can't get into windows, unless (and this is weird), a CHKDSK is
run, and then the next reboot is successful! The system seems to
decide itself when a CHKDSK is required.

Things I have tried:

*. Boot into Safe Mode - sometimes it works, others it doesn't. If I
choose Administrator on user selection screen in safe mode, it just
hangs when 'getting the preferences' etc... Choosing 'Owner' mostly
works.
*. I have run Norton AntiVirus scans when I get into windows, all
clear. I've run Sypot and Adaware too, all clear.
*. Done a disk defrag, pc doctor tests (motherboard etc...), all
clear.
*. Removed all Startup items using msconfig, restarts fine and boots
up, but won't boot properly after a shutdown/power down! So I don't
think it's the Startup items where the problem is.
*. Check for the wasupdater.exe problem, but userinit.exe entries in
the registry are ok.

I recently installed windows defender, and I think thats when the
problems started. I also recently installed Office 2003, and got all
the updates installed too from Automatic Updates. I un-installed
Defender, but problem still there. Could be an Office - XP issue? Is
it worth replacing these exe's (userinit, explorer) with originals
using XP recovery console expand command?

Make sure there is a full and complete backup of important data. Download
a drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer's web site.
That will create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot from that and run the
diagnostics.

 

[scootrobertson]

Make sure there is a full and complete backup of important data. Download
a drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer's web site.
That will create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot from that and run the
diagnostics.

To cut a long story short, I recovered the PC to XP service pack1,
factory settings. It meant I lost a bit of data, but had most of it
backed up.

After a few cold boots, it seems to be fine again. Service Pack 2
must have been messing with it, or over time had corrupted some system
files (i dunno). I'll try and install SP2 again, this time from
standalone, rather than Windows Update!

Thanks for the help.

 

[Rock]

You're welcome, glad you got a resolution and thanks for posting back.