Please help - Windows not starting up

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sam
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Sam

I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ computer, running XP HE, with 1GB RAM.

Earlier this evening, I removed my modem card in order to install a Compro
Videomate TV card. At that stage, everything was fine - the TV card was
recognised and I installed the accompanying software.

Part of the installation stage was to restart the computer. Upon restarting,
I was unable to open any program, for example, the control panel, or Task
Manager, and could do nothing, so I rebooted the machine using the reset
button.

When the computer restarted, it gave me the message asking me to choose a
boot method, but no matter which one I choose n- the same thing happens - it
loads Windows up just until after the logo screen, then all goes black and
nothing happens.

I think I know how to try and do a repair of XP, but there's one thing
bothering me - the hard drive light on my computer is staying a steady
red... could the hard drive have died, or is this a software clash with
Windows?

I'd be grateful for any help anyone can give me, thank you very much.

Sam
 
Sam said:
I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ computer, running XP HE, with 1GB RAM.

Earlier this evening, I removed my modem card in order to install a Compro
Videomate TV card. At that stage, everything was fine - the TV card was
recognised and I installed the accompanying software.

Part of the installation stage was to restart the computer. Upon
restarting, I was unable to open any program, for example, the control
panel, or Task Manager, and could do nothing, so I rebooted the machine
using the reset button.

When the computer restarted, it gave me the message asking me to choose a
boot method, but no matter which one I choose n- the same thing happens -
it loads Windows up just until after the logo screen, then all goes black
and nothing happens.

I think I know how to try and do a repair of XP, but there's one thing
bothering me - the hard drive light on my computer is staying a steady
red... could the hard drive have died, or is this a software clash with
Windows?

I'd be grateful for any help anyone can give me, thank you very much.

Sam
Click to expand...

I neglected to inform you that I've removed the TV card from the computer,
but the situation is still the same.

Thanks.
 
Well... everything worked fine until I did Part 3 of the Charles White
tutorial... now Windows states it must be activated before I can even log
on - but I have no desktop icons and no way of connecting to the internet in
order to do so... can anyone help, please? I followed the article to the
letter.
Sorry about this.
 
1. Make sure the card is correctly seated. If its in the AGP slot, make
sure it's locked down. If in a PCI, make sure the screw or bar is
tightened down.

2. Check to make sure your drive jumpers are correct (if you have one
disk drive, make sure its a master and not a slave).

3. Are you saying that you can't even start it in "Safe Mode"?
 
John Bailo said:
1. Make sure the card is correctly seated. If its in the AGP slot, make
sure it's locked down. If in a PCI, make sure the screw or bar is
tightened down.
Click to expand...

I have removed the card I was installing from the PCI slot.
2. Check to make sure your drive jumpers are correct (if you have one disk
drive, make sure its a master and not a slave).
Click to expand...

They are correct.
3. Are you saying that you can't even start it in "Safe Mode"?
Click to expand...

I can boot into "safe mode" but can't get past the Windows Activation
notice. I can't log on to my ISP because I have no desktop icons - this is
my problem.

Thanks.
 
Ok, I just wanted to be clear.

Sounds like you may have to do some registry hacking once you get into
the system.

An alternative is:

Did you set up a System account when you installed XP?

Have you tried logging in as that instead of yourself.

The card drivers might only load for your user account.

If not:

Even if you don't have desktop icons, do you have the taskbar, so that
you can do a Ctrl-esc and bring up the Run command.

At that point I would start looking for ways to uninstall the card's
software. If you can't uninstall it, run regedt32 and see if you can
find any entries that do a load of drivers or resident .exes that might
be locking up your system.
 
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