Sudden Bootup failure.

[TerryS.]

After doing a clean reinstall of XP Pro SP2 as well as the latest versions
of my necessary basic softwares I had a reliable and stable OS.
Four months later, of all of a sudden the bootup fails to a black screen
with the blinking cursor and a message to put in an installation disc.

Hitting the reboot button and the F8 key gets me: Boot Menu/select boot
drive/Enter.....for a perfect boot and session performance. But this is
becoming tedious.

The boot up fails after the initial drive search including the floppy drive
that's installed (yeah yeah I know) and that I still use occasionally.
I did use it recently and it was several days before I noticed that I had
left a floppy in the drive. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure my boot
up problem started after I removed the floppy disc.

I do run two SATA drives with the boot partition on the primary drive.
The BIOS bootup is set to boot from HDD as it has always been.
Floppy bootup and check are disabled in the BIOS.

Can I repair the bootup sequence?
Any other knowledge and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
TerryS.

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

After doing a clean reinstall of XP Pro SP2 as well as the latest versions
of my necessary basic softwares I had a reliable and stable OS.
Four months later, of all of a sudden the bootup fails to a black screen
with the blinking cursor and a message to put in an installation disc.

Hitting the reboot button and the F8 key gets me: Boot Menu/select boot
drive/Enter.....for a perfect boot and session performance. But this is
becoming tedious.

Is this Boot Menu a BIOS or SATA menu? If so then your problem is not
Windows but hardware related. I recommend you try a hardware newsgroup.

 

[Gerry]

Terry

With the failed boot is the BIOS recognising the hard drive(s)?
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/bootSequence-c.html

Can you see where the boot fails?

Have a look in the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for Errors
and Warnings and post copies here. Don't post any more than 48 hours ago.
You should note the problem could be occurring before Event Viewer starts to
log Events. One of the first events in the System log will either be ID:
6005 or ID 6009. If you do not see either then the boot is failing before
logging is starting so there is no log.

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

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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[TerryS.]

Hey Gerry,
Thanks for the help and links..

All the BIOS info and settings re the drives looks OK.

Events 6005 and 6009 are the first events logged, then two events of device
IDs, then two events of a drive not supporting digital play back.

The fifth and the next seven events is the following error:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10005
Date: 15/04/2009
Time: 10:20:12 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: USER
Description:
DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled
or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to
start the service SENS with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{D3938AB0-5B9D-11D1-8DD2-00AA004ABD5E}

The boot seems to fail after looking at the DVD and floppy drives.

TerryS.

 

[TerryS.]

Is this Boot Menu a BIOS or SATA menu? If so then your problem is not
Windows but hardware related. I recommend you try a hardware newsgroup.

Interesting point.....It is not the BIOS menu, so you may be right.
I shall press on.

Thanks for the input.
TerryS.

 

[Gerry]

Terry

Select Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and right click
on SENS (System Event Notification Service) and select Properties. The
StartUp type should be Automatic. Is it?
http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_event_notification.htm


--


Hope this helps.

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

 

[Anna]

After doing a clean reinstall of XP Pro SP2 as well as the latest versions
of my necessary basic softwares I had a reliable and stable OS.
Four months later, of all of a sudden the bootup fails to a black screen
with the blinking cursor and a message to put in an installation disc.

Hitting the reboot button and the F8 key gets me: Boot Menu/select boot
drive/Enter.....for a perfect boot and session performance. But this is
becoming tedious.

The boot up fails after the initial drive search including the floppy
drive
that's installed (yeah yeah I know) and that I still use occasionally.
I did use it recently and it was several days before I noticed that I had
left a floppy in the drive. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure my boot
up problem started after I removed the floppy disc.

I do run two SATA drives with the boot partition on the primary drive.
The BIOS bootup is set to boot from HDD as it has always been.
Floppy bootup and check are disabled in the BIOS.

Can I repair the bootup sequence?
Any other knowledge and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
TerryS.

Terry:
While it's conceivable a hardware issue might be involved here, it's
reasonable to suspect this might be nothing more than a corrupted OS that's
preventing a straightaway boot to your system.

I'm assuming that in that four-month period starting from the time you
fresh-installed the XP OS and during which, as you state, you had a
perfectly bootable & functional system with no problems - you did not make
any configuration or other hardware/software changes that you think might
have caused your present problem(s).

And that the system is free of any malware that might be implicated.

I'm assuming this is a desktop PC, yes? Assuming you're comfortable with
getting inside your desktop's case and have some familiarity with
components, what happens when you disconnect the floppy disk drive from the
system? Same problem?

The problem could be nothing more than a mildly corrupted OS that's
preventing a normal boot. Have you considered running a Repair install of
the OS? (I'm assuming this is not an OEM machine where only a recovery
process would be available, i.e., you have at your disposal either a
non-branded OEM or full retail copy of the XP OS installation CD).

Have you run the sfc /scannow and/or the chkdsk /r commands to determine
whether they might correct the problem, assuming the problem is software
(OS) related?
Anna

 

[TerryS.]

Yeah Gerry, SENS was on auto.

I read your email early and spent some time following up your suggestions
and your very useful links thank you.
I tinkered and tweaked the BIOS boot menu, ran checks on drives and
services and settings, ran disc checks and some security programs and on
about my tenth reboot for the day the sequence went as it should and we had
XP happening drama free.
Another couple of test reboots and all error free.
Yeah.....it's a mystery to me to mate! But something worked.

Thanks for your input. A good crash lesson in component services and
associated stuff.

Regards,
TerryS.

 

[TerryS.]

Terry:
While it's conceivable a hardware issue might be involved here, it's
reasonable to suspect this might be nothing more than a corrupted OS
that's preventing a straightaway boot to your system.

A more than reasonable reasonable suspicion on your part Anna........I too
suspected.
It was sudden and out of the blue.

I'm assuming that in that four-month period starting from the time you
fresh-installed the XP OS and during which, as you state, you had a
perfectly bootable & functional system with no problems - you did not make
any configuration or other hardware/software changes that you think might
have caused your present problem(s).

Ummm......well I errr....I do have inspirational curiosity in computerous
doings.

And that the system is free of any malware that might be implicated.

I have run a clean operation on and off the web for several years but I did
run an updated SpyBot search on reading this.
It never usually picks anything up, but it did find a file it did not like,
some HBO.
I pressed the "fix" button without recording details of the bug.

I'm assuming this is a desktop PC, yes? Assuming you're comfortable with
getting inside your desktop's case and have some familiarity with
components, what happens when you disconnect the floppy disk drive from
the system? Same problem?

Did that one too....didn't seem to make a difference at the time.

The problem could be nothing more than a mildly corrupted OS that's
preventing a normal boot. Have you considered running a Repair install of
the OS? (I'm assuming this is not an OEM machine where only a recovery
process would be available, i.e., you have at your disposal either a
non-branded OEM or full retail copy of the XP OS installation CD).

Have you run the sfc /scannow and/or the chkdsk /r commands to determine
whether they might correct the problem, assuming the problem is software
(OS) related?
Anna

I have followed up all of the suggestions from yourself and another helpful
poster (see my exchange with Gerry) and something has worked.
I finally got a normal bootup and several more faultless reboots.
We're back on deck. I am not sure how.
Thank you for your input Anna.

Regards,
TerryS.

 

[Gerry]

You're welcome Terry. Glad it's all sorted.


--


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