Windows XP boot fails/hangs after agp driver load, obvious fix doesn'thelp

  • Thread starter Thread starter el_bandido
  • Start date Start date
E

el_bandido

Hello,

I'm a bit at a loss here as to how to proceed with my problem. I've got
a Windows XP Professional installation on my Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop
and it worked almost flawlessly. During the course of using it I've
installed major new components such as firewalling tools and a couple of
development tools. Nothing fancy though. I've also installed the
autopatcher.com package which includes a set of patches to render the
system into SP2 state.

Recently I wanted to get my wireless access card to run properly since
the Windows XP provided driver didn't seem to cut it. For this I've
downloaded a driver package from Agere systems and installed those
drivers. This was about the last action I can remember that could have
changed and hosed the system in a negative way.

Right now, I cannot boot my Laptop into Windows XP anymore. All modes
listed when pressing F8 don't work and if I select 'Safe mode with
Command prompt' I see the logs up to the follwing lines, where the
system just stalls:

[...]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\NDIS.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\Mup.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\agp440.sys

So, to me it looks like the agp bus driver is initialised and after that
something is defunct (graphics driver). I can boot my Linux, FreeBSD and
Plan9 installation on other partitions just fine. In fact everything
works just fine except that Windows XP doesn't boot up anymore. Also
inserting the Windows XP Installation CD-Rom and entering the fixup mode
doesn't provide me with much help. It's kind of like a Single User Mode
(Unix like) where all the partitions get mounted but with a very limited
set of commands.

What can I do to either fix or debug the problem? I cannot (don't want)
reinstall WindowsXP again, especially since over the years I've done
some heavy finetuning which will take weeks again to get it done ;(.

I have of course google'd and found a possible fix but it does not work
for me; here is the problem description from Microsoft's perspective:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324764

I'm interested in a real fix or a debugging instruction so I can address
this issue myself. Maybe it's extremely subtle. I'm open to any suggestions.

Cheers,
Roberto Nibali, ratz

ps.: I'm sure a mature OS like Windows NT puts some debugging logfiles
somewhere onto the system; could anyone point me to those so I get a
little bit more information than just a hang?
 
ADDENDUM:
I have of course google'd and found a possible fix but it does not work
for me; here is the problem description from Microsoft's perspective:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324764

I've also tried following approaches in vain:

o updated BIOS
o run chkdsk c: /R
o removed all possible hardware
o changed certain IRQ related settings in the BIOS

Help would really be appreciated. Found two pages with a lot of
information on it so far:

http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/21602.html

http://ianwij.com/weblog/archive/2004/02/01/Windows_XP_hang_loading_agp440sys.aspx

Regards,
Roberto Nibali, ratz
 

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