Windows XP Booting in Circles

[amullan]

Hey

First time poster here and i need some help!

Yesterday my Fujitsu Siemens started acting up on me. When it starts to boot Windows XP i get a "we apologise for the inconvenience but Windows did not start successfully...." It give me 5 options to boot XP -
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Last Know Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)
and
Start Windows Normally.

And none of these options work, they all take a long time but keep the machine going in circles ie. it shuts down and restarts giving me the same problem. Interesting fact is that on the last two options (last known good config and start normally just before the machine give up i see for about a second the "normal" windows start up screen with blue bar running across.

I have tried the Product Recovery CD that came with my machine. the recovery console was useless.
i have also tried to reinstall windows from the CD however it found a problem with the partitioning and to reinstall i would have to loose all the data on the machine

I am thinking about using Knoppix to get the files off before wiping the machine.

Any ideas

 

[ChristopherP]

Is your hard drive screwed maybe?

Welcome, btw

 

[andy j]

Have you changed the motherboard by any chance?

If yes follow this url;
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article07-101
You need to upgrade your Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)
Let us know how you go on!

 

[amullan]

1. i dont think my hard drive is screwed as i was able to access it during the recovery console
2. i havent change my motherboard - im on a fujitsu siemens laptop

last time i (its a family machine) i was uploading software for my new HP ipaq could the software clashed with SP2?

eta. Any ideas on Knoppix or has anyone tried it?

 

[masada]

It may be a software conflict, try to uninstall the last software that you have installed, you can do this from the Safe Mode. Good luck.

 

[Consoles_Suck]

Well hes already said he cant boot into safe mode so thats not a viable option is it^. That also means its probably not a hardware problem so ur best off just copying ur files elsewere using knoppix and starting again....

 

[andy j]

Knoppix is a fantastic program, used it a few times

 

[Stevecook]

You need to boot from your XP installation disk and use the Recovery option to fixmbr, see http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixmbr.mspx

 

[amullan]

Can you give me a bit more info on the fixmbr command, what does it do? could it ruin my machine and get rid of all the data?

 

[itsme]

Fixmbr


Repairs the master boot record of the boot disk. The fixmbr command is only available when you are using the Recovery Console


fixmbr [device_name]


Parameter


device_name


The device (drive) on which you want to write a new master boot record. The name can be obtained from the output of the map command. An example of a device name is:


\Device\HardDisk0.


Example


The following example writes a new master boot record to the device specified:


fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0




Note


•If you do not specify a device_name, a new master boot record will be written to the boot device, which is the drive on which your primary system is loaded.


•If an invalid or nonstandard partition table signature is detected, you will be prompted whether you want to continue. If you are not having problems accessing your drives, you should not continue. Writing a new master boot record to your system partition could damage your partition tables and cause your partitions to become inaccessible.

 

[amullan]

yeah i get that but will it fix it or do any dammage if it doesnt work?

 

[floppybootstomp]

yeah i get that but will it fix it or do any dammage if it doesnt work?

Depends how bad the operating system is corrupted. It may work, it may not, but seems to me that's about the only option you got.

If there's anyway you can back up important data before attempting a recovery, do it now.

 

[amullan]

thanks floppybootstomp, thats exactly what i wanted to hear. im downloading knoppix now (6 hours wait) to see if i can lift off my stuff

thanks

 

[amullan]

right im still going to try the knoppix but i went ahead and tried the fixmbr command in the Recovery Console. I was told my computer
"appears to have a non-standard pr invalid master boot record. FIMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed.
This could cause all that partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible.
If you are not having problems accessing your drive. do not contine.
Are you sure you want to write a new MBR"

i said no. ny more ideas?
thanks for all the help so far

 

[andy j]

Remember to have your Windows XP in the cd drive, set the bios to boot from cd device, once the preferances have loaded in choose Fix, Just try fixboot press enter key & then select Y

After that, type in fixmbr prees enter & then select Y, all this does is writes a new boot sector & master boot record, it doesn't interfear with any files you have saved on the HDD (hard drive)
Knoppix by the way is just a CD bootable operating (Linux) system, so you can recover important files if you have any?

let us know how you go on

 

[amullan]

i tried both fixboot and fixmbr with no results, i was back at the same screen (safe mode/sfaemode with networking/safe mode with command prompt/last know good config/normal) and none of these worked. i am told knoppix can recover files from the HDD, http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

 

[murcury]

xp reboots

That happened to us a few months ago so we bought a new hard drive and set the old one to slave we managed to recover almost all of our files and now we have two hard drives. If you take your specs in they can tell you how much bigger you can upgrade to safely.

 

[Skinz]

Also from the recovery console try running a chkdsk /r which will try and repair any corrupt files. This has worked for me several times.

 

[RedwunX]

I am having the same problem. I have not found a solution for it yet. I have tried chkdsk /r, fixmbr, fixboot, and even formatted both my 80GB and 120GB harddrives. We (me and my father) think it's a boot sector virus, but haven't got a clue how to fix this. What my computer does: 1) Power on, Ask if you want to boot from CD (if my XP disk is in the drive), then the CD-RW light comes on and the Harddrive light is on, too. It's like the system just hangs. Nothing can be done, and I have to hardboot it to start it up again. As of now, I cannot boot into the Recovery Console without the system failing as described above. As of now, this is what is in my system... 2 Harddisks, 1 CD-RW Drive, 1 AGP Video Card, 2x512 Modules of RAM, AMD Athlon XP 1700+ CPU (w/Heatsink), and 4 case fans.

Sorry amullan, but we have had no results either.

 

[Skinz]

I am having the same problem. I have not found a solution for it yet. I have tried chkdsk /r, fixmbr, fixboot, and even formatted both my 80GB and 120GB harddrives. We (me and my father) think it's a boot sector virus, but haven't got a clue how to fix this. What my computer does: 1) Power on, Ask if you want to boot from CD (if my XP disk is in the drive), then the CD-RW light comes on and the Harddrive light is on, too. It's like the system just hangs. Nothing can be done, and I have to hardboot it to start it up again. As of now, I cannot boot into the Recovery Console without the system failing as described above. As of now, this is what is in my system... 2 Harddisks, 1 CD-RW Drive, 1 AGP Video Card, 2x512 Modules of RAM, AMD Athlon XP 1700+ CPU (w/Heatsink), and 4 case fans.

Sorry amullan, but we have had no results either.

So when you say you have to hard boot it again to get it to work, does that mean it actually boots up goes into windows after doing this?