Windows won't start

[Sharon F]

Have been feeling that I am getting stuck ever deeper into the sand here. For
example, tried to remove all traces of my camera; there were no "unistall"
options anywhere ( under Add/Remove in Control/Panel, in the camera's own
folder within Program Files nor under device manager). In the end, I simply
deleted the camera's own folder. Despite this, the XP installation process
still advised me that there might be problems with the camera later on.

This, however, is now the ONLY issue, that the XP advised me about. But the
installation stalled, as before, when the PC restarted and we got back to the
progress bar - it passes under the logo two and a half times then reboots.
(Previously it would reboot only three times before giving a disk error; now
it takes about 10 reboots!)

Re your comment:

[1 quoted line suppressed]

Win98. Are you sure your recovery CD blanked the drive and installed just
Win98? Are you sure you're installing XP as an upgrade and not mistakenly
creating a second Windows installation on the same drive? I think you need
to take a good hard look on what you have going here. Possibly starting
over and keeping more on track.<<

. . . . .I have to say that I am no longer entirely certain what has
happened. What I do know is this: years ago I had Win 98 running quite
happily (albeit very unstable). I added a new hard drive (about 2003) and the
new drive software copied all my "old" C:\ drive files (including Windows 98)
to my new created C:\ drive. As far as I recall, the files on my "old" C\
drive remained there (on what what was now my D:\ drive). I never thought too
much about them but left them there "just in case". Whilst this meant that I
had a "Widows" directory on both my C:\ and D:\ drives, I do not know if this
meant I had two functional versions of windows. Be that as it may, the
upgrade to XP last November was relatively straightforward. As far as I am
aware XP ugraded to my C:\ drive but I do not know how to verify that now.

Decided your "start over" option sounded like good sense at this point so I
uninstalled Windows 98. This seemed to go well and my PC now behaves - as far
as I can ascertain - as it did at the beginning of this thread (ie Windows
won't start (at all) and the "repair intallation" only goes so far before
rebooting repeatedly.

Using an old Windows 98 "startup" disk (which seems to be the only way I can
get at anything) I looked at my C:\ and D:\ drives. To my surprise, both
still have windows directories even after the uninstall process. Many of the
files within these directories are the same (though many are not); the
directory on C:\ is dated 18 Sept 1999 yet the directory on D:\ is dated
today - 4 July 2005. I really do not know that is going on.

Before I try and reinstall Windows 98 (again) does any of this help/make
sense/suggest another course of action first? (eg should I delete one, or
other or both those windows directories?).

[Incidentally, I only have access to two Win 98 disks; one is the one I
used before -
(but I do not know how to tell what sort it is); the other is an OEM Windows
98 Second Edition that came with another PC some years ago.

Sorry to go on at such lenght; I do recognise that this is taking up a
disproportionate amount of your time.

Chris (with sand up to my chin).

You need to reassess where you're at and then map out where you want to go
and how you're going to get there.

There are some screens during XP's setup that are a bit (okay, a lot)
ambiguous. If you don't read them carefully you can end up with two
versions of Windows on a single drive instead of upgrading or clean
installing. The key is to delete the target partition and recreate it. Next
you choose the partition to install XP to this prepared area. And then are
asked how you want it formatted.

Some more resources for you about the install procedure:

Upgrade Paths to Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_upgrade_paths.htm

Clean Install Procedure with Illustrative Screen Captures
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_home_install_-_graphic.htm

Clean Install Procedure with Illustrative Screen Captures
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_install_-_graphic.htm

Upgrading to Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/upgrading_to_windows_xp.htm

Beware of popups here (strongly advise using a popup blocker if you visit
here) but in spite of the popup annoyances some more useful pictorial
guides can be found here: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

NOTE: The clean install method will not ask for a Win98 startup disk. It
will ask for a Win98 CD. Setup wants to see the version of Windows that you
are using to qualify for using the upgrade version of XP. If you cannot
provide an acceptable CD at that point, setup will not continue.

An upgrade install started from within Win98 will end up with one Windows
folder with a few remnants of Win98 remaining.

A full version CD of XP can perform an upgrade or clean install but does
not require proof.

A generic OEM XP (available from some dealers with the purchase of some
computer components), performs a clean install only. It is cheaper than the
full version but, technically, its license will be tied permanently to the
machine that it is installed on.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your further thoughts and for the relevant links which I have
studied closely.

Since doing that, I have tried to install XP by booting direct to my CD ROM.
According to www.windowsreinstall.com I should be able to do this to a drive
that is brand new, used, or one that does or does not have an operating
system already on it as the installation process will prompt for product
keys, evidence of eligibility etc at the appropriate times.

In my experiences, however, I never get that far. The PC boots from the CD,
I get the “Welcome to Setup†page and the setup files are loaded. So far so
good. I press “Enter†and setup starts "examining 57240MB Disk 0 at id 0 on
bus 0 on atpi . . . ." but then the system reboots. It continues in this
cycle until I stop it or until I get a “disk error – press any key to
restart†message.

I have repeated this process several times both with and without Windows 98
installed. The results are the same.

Trying to install from within Windows 98 is no more successful. Autorun
starts the CD. I have tried both the “Upgrade (recommended)†and “New
Installation†approaches. I put in the product key, and follow the processes
through. Whilst these differ slightly, all seems to be going well until I
reach a stage during “Preparing Installation†(but before “Installing
Windowsâ€) when setup restarts the PC. I get as far as the Windows logo where
the progress bar moves across two and a half times before the system reboots.
This cycle then continues until I stop it or until I get a “disk error –
press any key to restartâ€. Under the “New Installation†option I have also
tried the option of selecting the drive on which to install and repartition.
This, too, gets to the first reboot, Setup starts, loads the setup files then
reboots – back into the same cycle.

As far as my hardware is concerned, it seems to be running fine. Windows 98
is installed and OK. Word is installed and is OK. I am using the same video
card, printer, monitor, keyboard and mouse as before (when XP (as an upgrade)
performed perfectly). My DVD rewriter is also the same (but without Windows
XP it will only “readâ€). The motherboard (modern Gigabyte), processor (Athlon
64 3400+), memory (512mb) and power supply are new but there is no evidence
that I can find that they are not performing as they should. Scandisk has
checked all my disks (two physical drives and several logical drives) and
found no errors.

Before disaster struck, my anti-virus auto-updated every eight hours, my
firewall was always running, I regularly ran anti-spyware software (eg
Adaware, CW Shredder), and Microsoft’s own Beta anti-spyware release was
installed and running so it is difficult to think that anything malicious is
involved.

Maybe I am still missing something here but I really cannot see what it is
nor where I go from here. Any more suggestions?

Thanks.

Chris.

Have been feeling that I am getting stuck ever deeper into the sand here. For
example, tried to remove all traces of my camera; there were no "unistall"
options anywhere ( under Add/Remove in Control/Panel, in the camera's own
folder within Program Files nor under device manager). In the end, I simply
deleted the camera's own folder. Despite this, the XP installation process
still advised me that there might be problems with the camera later on.

This, however, is now the ONLY issue, that the XP advised me about. But the
installation stalled, as before, when the PC restarted and we got back to the
progress bar - it passes under the logo two and a half times then reboots.
(Previously it would reboot only three times before giving a disk error; now
it takes about 10 reboots!)

Re your comment:

[1 quoted line suppressed]

Win98. Are you sure your recovery CD blanked the drive and installed just
Win98? Are you sure you're installing XP as an upgrade and not mistakenly
creating a second Windows installation on the same drive? I think you need
to take a good hard look on what you have going here. Possibly starting
over and keeping more on track.<<

. . . . .I have to say that I am no longer entirely certain what has
happened. What I do know is this: years ago I had Win 98 running quite
happily (albeit very unstable). I added a new hard drive (about 2003) and the
new drive software copied all my "old" C:\ drive files (including Windows 98)
to my new created C:\ drive. As far as I recall, the files on my "old" C\
drive remained there (on what what was now my D:\ drive). I never thought too
much about them but left them there "just in case". Whilst this meant that I
had a "Widows" directory on both my C:\ and D:\ drives, I do not know if this
meant I had two functional versions of windows. Be that as it may, the
upgrade to XP last November was relatively straightforward. As far as I am
aware XP ugraded to my C:\ drive but I do not know how to verify that now.

Decided your "start over" option sounded like good sense at this point so I
uninstalled Windows 98. This seemed to go well and my PC now behaves - as far
as I can ascertain - as it did at the beginning of this thread (ie Windows
won't start (at all) and the "repair intallation" only goes so far before
rebooting repeatedly.

Using an old Windows 98 "startup" disk (which seems to be the only way I can
get at anything) I looked at my C:\ and D:\ drives. To my surprise, both
still have windows directories even after the uninstall process. Many of the
files within these directories are the same (though many are not); the
directory on C:\ is dated 18 Sept 1999 yet the directory on D:\ is dated
today - 4 July 2005. I really do not know that is going on.

Before I try and reinstall Windows 98 (again) does any of this help/make
sense/suggest another course of action first? (eg should I delete one, or
other or both those windows directories?).

[Incidentally, I only have access to two Win 98 disks; one is the one I
used before -
(but I do not know how to tell what sort it is); the other is an OEM Windows
98 Second Edition that came with another PC some years ago.

Sorry to go on at such lenght; I do recognise that this is taking up a
disproportionate amount of your time.

Chris (with sand up to my chin).

You need to reassess where you're at and then map out where you want to go
and how you're going to get there.

There are some screens during XP's setup that are a bit (okay, a lot)
ambiguous. If you don't read them carefully you can end up with two
versions of Windows on a single drive instead of upgrading or clean
installing. The key is to delete the target partition and recreate it. Next
you choose the partition to install XP to this prepared area. And then are
asked how you want it formatted.

Some more resources for you about the install procedure:

Upgrade Paths to Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_upgrade_paths.htm

Clean Install Procedure with Illustrative Screen Captures
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_home_install_-_graphic.htm

Clean Install Procedure with Illustrative Screen Captures
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_install_-_graphic.htm

Upgrading to Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/upgrading_to_windows_xp.htm

Beware of popups here (strongly advise using a popup blocker if you visit
here) but in spite of the popup annoyances some more useful pictorial
guides can be found here: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

NOTE: The clean install method will not ask for a Win98 startup disk. It
will ask for a Win98 CD. Setup wants to see the version of Windows that you
are using to qualify for using the upgrade version of XP. If you cannot
provide an acceptable CD at that point, setup will not continue.

An upgrade install started from within Win98 will end up with one Windows
folder with a few remnants of Win98 remaining.

A full version CD of XP can perform an upgrade or clean install but does
not require proof.

A generic OEM XP (available from some dealers with the purchase of some
computer components), performs a clean install only. It is cheaper than the
full version but, technically, its license will be tied permanently to the
machine that it is installed on.

 

[Guest]

Hey Chris ! ill be glad to be of any help.. Wel wen something like dis wud
happen, ill lookout n check few basic things, firstly weather my partition
table is intact or it has got corrupted or damaged, to check so u will have
to boot from a Bootable Win Xp cd, Secondly once my Win Xp had got badly
corrupted due to some theme i downloaded from some dvd, and it wasnt gettin
repaired, so i installed a new copy on the same partion and took a backup and
den did wht i think sharon was sayin, clean setup.N thirdly, if u have got
the latest 64 bit processor and its compatable motherboard, u just need to
check weather you are using the XP version devloped for it. Well Dis is all i
can say rite now. Do reply as to wht happend, n was it of any help.
All the Best. Hope u dun loose ur data...

 

[Sharon F]

So far so
good. I press ´Enter¡ and setup starts "examining 57240MB Disk 0 at id 0 on
bus 0 on atpi . . . ." but then the system reboots.

Try running chkdsk on the drive.

 

[Guest]

When I run chkdsk, I get a message saying I should use Scandisk and that no
drives have been checked. I have downloaded other versions of chkdsk but get
the same result.

Nevertheless, I ran Scandisk on ALL my drives. No errors.

Is there another way to run chkdsk? Would it make any difference?

Chris.

 

[Sharon F]

When I run chkdsk, I get a message saying I should use Scandisk and that no
drives have been checked. I have downloaded other versions of chkdsk but get
the same result.

Nevertheless, I ran Scandisk on ALL my drives. No errors.

Is there another way to run chkdsk? Would it make any difference?

Scandisk is just Win9x' tool for checking the disk.

I know that you have recently installed new hardware to replace broken but
am beginning to wonder if you still have a hardware problem that needs to
be resolved. Running setup and getting a successful start in XP shouldn't
be this difficult.

 

[Guest]

Hi Naval

Many thanks for your thoughts.

My main problem is that I cannot get XP to do anything at all (ie run,
repair or install) so I don't know how go about checking if my partition is
OK or not. When my last motherboard broke down (and XP was running at the
time) a cooling fan had failed so I suspect the whole thing overheated before
it finally shut down. I imagine that this would not have been a controlled
shutdown so I guess anything might have happened to my partition. That said,
however, Windows 98 does run and Scandisk finds nothing wrong. Don't know if
this means my partitions are ok or not.

As far as the version of XP I have is concerned, it is the upgrade pack with
SP2 - so its fairly recent. I had been given the impression that my new board
would be backwards compatible with all XP and all Windows 98 versions. But
given that nothing else has worked so far, I am going to put this question to
Gigabyte. I'll also explore, with them, Sharon F's theory that I still might
have a hardware problem.

Glad to say data is now safe - once I got W98 up and running, I was able to
copy it to another drive.


Chris.

 

[Guest]

I had much of the same errors and problems after trying to upgrade to vista!
After learning the hard way I will tell you to please back-up all your files
before trying anything else! I also had to install a clean version instead of
the "upgrade" and I lost everything in my computer! EVERYTHING!!!!! The first
time I was able to get back to windows xp and the computer actually told me
it recovered from a serious issue. That should have been enough to warn me,
but instead I didnt really thing that an up-to-date version of windows would
completelly dump everything.

 

[Roger]

Can you run a full disc check, Also if you use Start>Run> Open>type in sfc
/scannow,make sure you have space after c. Load your xp disc and it will
take any missing files you have from disc. You may get retry box showing a
lot, but keep clicking it and you will see you blue bar appear. It could
take sometime if you have a lot missing.
"Roger"
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