Windows XP Not Booting

[Richard J]

Hi group,

I've stumbled into a very frustrating situation and was hoping for some
pointers or ideas, short of re-installation or purchase of a new machine.

I have a Dell XPS, purchased about 6 years ago and it is running Windows XP
(obviously). Somewhere in the past few days, the computer stopped booting
up. I would get to the Windows XP logo screen with the progress bar running
back and forth ... then, white "noise" lines before the computer shuts back
down.

I CAN start in safe mode, safe mode with networking, and safe mode with
command prompt. Trying to start with last known good configuration does no
good. Also, I have selected a restore point that is two weeks old and still
am unable to login.

I have run the chkdsk /r command, I have searched through my registry for
what items are running at startup and cleaned them plus some services using
the msconfig tool.

I spent much of yesterday with an external harddrive connected and using
safe mode to copy files, just in case I have no choice. I don't relish the
idea of re-installing the OS and then applying 5 years of updates.

Since I can get into safe mode, that seems to indicate there is no problem
with the harddisk; would that be a safe assumption?

Anyway, I have done a lot of online searching but none of their tips have
helped to this point. I wanted to get some other opinions before going the
route of reinstallation.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Richard

 

[neil]

Hi,
Have installed or changed any software that may have caused the problem.?
When you press F8 to get into safemode can you select to disable the auto
reboot on error and see what error message (if any) there is when the PC
shuts down. You could also check the event viewer log files to see if they
give a clue.

Neil

 

[JS]

Could be a device driver issue. Do or did you
install any "Optional" hardware updates lately.

Even if you did not, I would start out by booting
to Safe Mode with Networking and download the
most recent driver for your Video card (from Dell
if they still have it on there web site and if not try the
video card manufactures web site which is more likely
a better source)

If you PC is an XPS Gen 3 or 4 from the 2004 time frame then
it could be either an ATI 800 or a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 card
as both where common Dell options around that time.

 

[Gerry]

Richard

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.
Please do not post copies of reports for a safe mode boot. You tell which
are which by the time stamp on the report.

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.

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

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hi group,

I've stumbled into a very frustrating situation and was hoping for some
pointers or ideas, short of re-installation or purchase of a new machine.

I have a Dell XPS, purchased about 6 years ago and it is running Windows
XP
(obviously). Somewhere in the past few days, the computer stopped booting
up. I would get to the Windows XP logo screen with the progress bar
running
back and forth ... then, white "noise" lines before the computer shuts
back
down.

I CAN start in safe mode, safe mode with networking, and safe mode with
command prompt. Trying to start with last known good configuration does
no
good. Also, I have selected a restore point that is two weeks old and
still
am unable to login.

I have run the chkdsk /r command, I have searched through my registry for
what items are running at startup and cleaned them plus some services
using
the msconfig tool.

I spent much of yesterday with an external harddrive connected and using
safe mode to copy files, just in case I have no choice. I don't relish
the
idea of re-installing the OS and then applying 5 years of updates.

The updates won't take long at all, if you have a highspeed connection you
can be done them in an hour or so.

If your XP install CD doesn't have SP1, you'll need to install SP2 then SP3.
Download both full packages and save them to CD. Do the base XP install,
install the system drivers, then install the service packs you need.

You may also be able to slipstream your XP CD with the SP3 package and
install from that; this will give you a basic XP SP3 install. Download
nLite for this.

Since I can get into safe mode, that seems to indicate there is no problem
with the harddisk; would that be a safe assumption?

Maybe. But it doesn't mean that the problem is so obvious that it won't
take you longer to find and fix than to just install fresh. How many hours
do you have into this so far?

If your hard disk is original and 6 years old, it's time to replace it.
Where I am, a new 250 gig drive is around $70. The smallest you can find
is about 80 gig, which is around $50.

If you take this approach, you have your old hard disk as your backup set.
Remove it, set it aside, do your installs, and after that's completed,
connect the old drive and copy files to their correct location.

HTH
-pk