[OT] Windows XP Boot problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gordon Darling
  • Start date Start date
G

Gordon Darling

OT post but help needed!

Need some suggestions. I'm supposed to be looking
at a Windows XP system on Wednesday evening. The symptoms, as described,
are that the system boots to the "pick a boot method" screen (i.e. choose
safe, normal, command prompt, etc) and whatever choice is selected the
machine reboots to the same screen.

Given the wealth of knowledge in this group (and many of you are familiar
with XP) have any ACFers come across this before? Any ideas where to
start?

Regards
Gordon
 
Reading this page might be a good place to start:

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp

But it seems like there should be some message like "kernel not found",
or "boot sector error" or something.

I would try booting from the WinXP CD, going into the recovery console,
and looking at the files on the boot drive. See if any startup files
like "ntldr", "ntdetect.com", and "boot.ini" are damaged, and replace
them if they are; fix the MBR and boot sector.
 
Need some suggestions. I'm supposed to be looking
at a Windows XP system on Wednesday evening. The symptoms, as described,
are that the system boots to the "pick a boot method" screen (i.e. choose
safe, normal, command prompt, etc) and whatever choice is selected the
machine reboots to the same screen.
Click to expand...

This may be a stupid question: Does the machine boot normally into
whatever boot method you choose from the menu? If so, then the problem is
that you always are presented with the boot menu, not that the machine
won't boot at all, right?
 
Gordon Darling said:
OT post but help needed!

Need some suggestions. I'm supposed to be looking
at a Windows XP system on Wednesday evening. The symptoms, as described,
are that the system boots to the "pick a boot method" screen (i.e. choose
safe, normal, command prompt, etc) and whatever choice is selected the
machine reboots to the same screen.

Given the wealth of knowledge in this group (and many of you are familiar
with XP) have any ACFers come across this before? Any ideas where to
start?
Click to expand...

take along a mouse and keyboard, just in case
 
First I would check if the Hardware is O.K. Overclocked, Bad RAM......
WinNT is very sensitive at the booting phase.

Then you could use Repair with the xpCD. But you have to make your own
decisions, which Options you choose in Repair Mode.



Good Luck!




Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
OT post but help needed!

Need some suggestions. I'm supposed to be looking at a Windows XP system
on Wednesday evening. The symptoms, as described, are that the system
boots to the "pick a boot method" screen (i.e. choose safe, normal,
command prompt, etc) and whatever choice is selected the machine reboots
to the same screen.

Given the wealth of knowledge in this group (and many of you are familiar
with XP) have any ACFers come across this before? Any ideas where to
start?
Click to expand...

Thanks to all who replied and all the suggestions. I've made copious notes
of things to try when I get my hands on the machine.

It looks as though the problem may be as described in
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310396

Either way, it should be fun!!

Thanks again.

Regards
Gordon
 
How did it go? I've never had XP fail to boot, so I couldn't offer any
ideas. Did you get it booting? Or, what are the symptoms in more detail?
Click to expand...

Yep, got it going as described in the article. Machine booted to the boot
screen (pick Normal, safe mode, last clean boot, etc ,etc) and whatever
you selected caused an instant reboot and back to square one.
Never got as far as the splash screen. Replacing kernel32.dll was an
immediate cure.

Thanks
Gordon
 
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