Step-by-step troubleshooting?

[Steve Marshall]

I am stumped. My computer will boot in Safe Mode always, but only one
out of three times will it start normally; hangs at the black XP Pro
screen with the blue dotted line crawler, so I am assuming it is hanging
as it tries to load a device driver.

I have run sfc_scannow, done a repair/install, run chkdsk, I have no
yellow or red marks in device manager, I have unplugged all USB devices;
to no avail.

What is the best step-by-step troubleshooting method now? Uncheck all
start up items in msconfig start menu?

Steve

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Steve;
Do you have either of these?
How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560

Troubleshooting Problems using the Utility MSCONFIG
http://pcsupport.about.com/library/weekly/aa121502a.htm

 

[Steve Marshall]

Wesley,

I found the cause of one problem - the HP Scanjet 7450 USB Scanner -
removed it and I am now getting to a frozen mouse cursor on a black
screen just prior to the desktop showing up.

If I power off/on, it boots normally, but it first performs a chkdsk on
the F: drive (an Ultra 160 SCSI HDD) and finds no problems and then
boots normally.

I am wondering if, since I have a custom paging file on both the C:
drive and the F: drive if that has anything to do with this?

I know that the scanner was a problem, too; because the event viewer is
now clean of errors or warnings - yesterday I tracked down, by time,
all instances of when I was failing to shut down or boot successfully; a
DCOM error related to StiSvc (a WIA service problem).

I think I have another problem now - maybe I will disconnect the Adaptec
SCSI card and see what happens.

Steve

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Steve;
Go here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
Click the "C" scroll down to Check Disk - Disk Checking Runs Upon Boot
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The Windows XP Page File
http://www.theeldergeek.com/paging_file.htm
also has links to these articles:
[ Locating the Page File ]
[ Sizing the Page File ]
[ Physically Setting Page File Size ]
[ Page Files and Fragmentation ]
[ Defragmenting the Page File ]
[ Paging File Performance Monitoring ]
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Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php
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StiSvc
Still Image Service
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) Service
All I can find on this is updates having to do with some kind of vulnerbility.
----
Enable Logging of Wiadebug.log in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307001#appliesto

By default, the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service logs errors to a file named Wiadebug.log in the
Windows_folder folder. This article describes how to enable logging to the Wiadebug.log file.
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