swansfan said:
I have run chkdsk and run hardware test programs but all pass test so
far.Thanks for your support
swansfan:
Just to make absolutely clear we understand the precise nature of the
problem you're experiencing....
1. There's *never* a problem when you "cold boot" - the system boots to a
Desktop without incident and thereafter functions just fine. Never a problem
with a cold boot. It's only when you *manually* reboot for some reason (or
the system automatically reboots after installing an update or some program
you've installed that needs the reboot) that this problem occurs. So that
this problem occurs even when there's an "automatic" reboot, not *only* when
*you* manually (trigger the) reboot of your machine, right? And there's no
error messages of any kind along the way during this aborted boot process.
Is all that right?
2. When you power down the machine after this happens and you *immediately*
power up again without waiting even a few seconds, everything is fine? You
don't have to wait for things to "cool down" before the system will properly
boot?
3. When this rebooting problem does occur, the system *never* gets to a
Desktop. It gets only as far as the XP splash screen and then,. as you say,
"freezes". And even if you wait for some minutes it never gets any further.
You have waited a few minutes following the "freeze" before you've powered
down, right? Is all that right?
4. Is there anything that you can think of just before this problem surfaced
that you think might have had something to do with this problem? Any
software/hardware additions, changes, etc.that you made? Or did it just
happen "out of the blue"?
5. What are these "hardware test programs" you speak of? Have you checked
out the RAM in your machine using, for example, a memory diagnostic program
such as the Microsoft one?
See
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#Top
Also, even though you used the PB HDD diagnostic, it might also be wise to
use the HDD diagnostic utility that's usually available from the website of
the disk's manufacturer. Although it doesn't sound like a defective HDD is
the root cause of your problem.
6. And, of course, you've checked out your system for any malware, right?
On the face of it, it certainly sounds like a hardware-type of problem, but
not necessarily. If it *is* a hardware problem, it could be due to just
about any major component in your machine including the PSU, processor, RAM,
memory - even the motherboard. And the only practical definitive way you can
tell in that type of situation is to replace each component on a one-by-one
basis till you find the culprit. Probably not a practical solution in your
situation.
Does your machine have a floppy disk drive? If so, do you have a DOS boot
floppy disk,. e.g., a Win98/Me startup disk that you could use? Or if you
don't have a DOS boot floppy disk, you can obtain the necessary file to
create one from one of the websites that provide this data, e.g.,
http://www.bootdisk.com.
Boot with the DOS floppy disk till you get to the A:\ prompt and play around
with the commands on the boot floppy such as the FDISK one - check your HDD
partition info, etc. Just don't do anything serious. After a few minutes of
this, reboot the machine and see if you encounter the same problem you've
been experiencing. If so, this should tell us that the problem is definitely
hardware-based (while I'm leaning that way I'm still not totally convinced
it is a hardware-based problem).
Anna
