Problem starting XP

[Guest]

I'm having a problem starting the computer. It gets to the "Microsoft
Windows" screen, with the green loading bar, but then it just goes black.
Strangely the mouse pointer is visible and responds, as does the keyboard,
but the usual blue login screen does not appear. I've tried waiting several
minutes but nothing happens. Rebooting doesn't help. Ctrl+alt+delete does
nothing. I've tried clicking around randomly incase the login screen is
somehow active but not visible, but nothing happens.

I can't try starting in Safe Mode because the last time we took the machine
in to be repaired, a password appears to have been placed on the boot menu
and I don't know what that is. I'd prefer not to take the machine back into
the shop because that will undoubtedly cost a silly amount of money, and I
really only want access to the hard drive to transfer my old files to my new
PC.
Thanks for any help.

 

[Gerry]

Try booting with only keyboard, mouse, and monitor connected. Leave it
for far longer than several minutes. Even an hour if it results in the
machine booting. You need it to boot to find out what is wrong.

What reports in Event Viewer?

Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in the
System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports please.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Rich Barry]

I would physically remove the hard drive and attach it to the new PC
either as Slave or Master. From there you can retrieve
your important data and copy or move it to the hard drive of the new PC.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=How+to+Install+Second+Hard+Drive&btnG=Google+Search

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried waiting for an hour but to no avail. Then I tried hitting buttons
randomly, happened to hit return and managed to log on... sort of. The
background is visible, but no desktop icons. If I right-click and try
Properties, the mouse pointer hourglass flashes briefly, but that's it. Also,
the screen resolution looks quite a bit higher than I was using previously -
a large border is visible around the background image. I suspect it's some
kind of weird display problem, but I don't know how to fix it. The background
image is a custom-made image, so clearly the files are intact.

Bear with me here. Previously for some user accounts the taskbar would not
display. Now on those accounts (I can choose which to access at the invisible
login screen through the arrow keys), the taskbar is visible. However if I
try to access My Computer, or documents, or the task manager (or anything
really), it seems to open them to the left of the visible screen. I can move
the mouse pointer quite far to the left. I've tried moving it over there and
clicking and dragging randomly to try and bring the windows across, but
without luck. It used to be the case that the pointer could be moved quite
far off screen to the right, this is no longer the case. Users who could
previously see the taskbar can't any more.

We updated our graphics card some time ago to an NVidia GE-Force something
or other (can probably find out which model exactly, if need be). The monitor
is plugged in to the graphics card's video socket, as it didn't work at all
on the ordinary socket.

I'd rather not remove the hard drive, I don't know anything much about
hardware (and ideally I'd like to keep that machine working as a spare). I
have access to a laptop, is there any way I could connect that to the PC to
access it ?

Many thanks,
Rhysy