.startup problems

[RR2]

I can usually stumble through these problems myself (with the help of
Google), but this one has me stumped.

Laptop running XP Home.

During boot, once it gets past the Windows Logo screen, the screen turns
black and stays that way with only the cursor showing. The cursor moves
with mouse and touchpad input. None of the keyboard keys have any effect
(IE, no task manager on ctrl-alt-del, no win key response etc).

F-8 had no effect in bringing up Safe Mode. The only way I could get a
response to get it into safe mode is to remove the battery while in the
suspended state described above. Doing that procedure, I can get into safe
mode, but again it hangs showing a black screen, cursor, and "safe mode" in
all four corners.

From this, I've derived that the HD is OK, CPU, video, OK.

Normally, at this point, I'd just reinstall the OS and press on, but in this
case, I'd like to save any data on the HD if possible.

I know I can restore the system using the second repair option on the CD,
but I'd first like to see if there's anything on the HD worth saving.

Also, I tried booting from the OS CD, but ended up with the BSOD during file
copy. Possibly, this is due to scratches I found on the CD and not actually
a computer issue. I'll try to polish the scratches out.

Any suggestions where to go from here?

 

[Kelly]

Hi,

You are pretty much protected using the Repair Install option. The most you
would need to reinstall would be - some of your updates. However, I would
suggest borrowing another XP CD before the attempt.

Good luck!

Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q315341

Running Repair on Windows XP Requires User to Re-Activate XP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q302/7/40.asp

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

 

[RR2]

Thanks for the help and suggestion.

That was exciting. The repair was real slow. I mean
reaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllll slow. I started last evening, and it was still
running this morning when I got up. Stuck at somewhere around the 35 minute
point. We went out for a few hours this morning, and when we got back, it
had finished. Still no joy. Once it boots, it goes to a black screen with
only a cursor showing and stays there, same as before.

I've tried partition magic (v-8) in hopes of creating a small partition and
putting a parallel installation on it so I could get to the data I want to
save. No luck, PM says it has a dismount error.

At the moment, I've tried the repair (first R) mode with the installation
disk. chkdsk /P reflected errors on the disk, so I'm now using the chkdsk
/R mode to try to correct them and possibly get past the problem area.

 

[RR2]

More followup.

All else failed, so I've done a parallel instal of XP Home. It's working,
and I can see the file structure. I've run into another issue. I'm trying
to access the files in the owner's profile in the original installation.
I'm getting the old "access denied" prompt. I've looked in properties and
don't see any security settings (like on XP Pro/NTFS) and no option to take
ownership. The original intent of this whole exercise was to save the
user's files before reformatting the drive and doing a clean install.

How can I get past this obsticle?

 

[RR2]

Got It.

Paralell install did the trick. I had to log to safe mode and take
posession of all the personal files before I could copy them to the external
drive.
The HD appears to be in pretty good shape, just something corrupted in the
original installation. I'll do a clean install following full disk format
and we should be good to go.