O
Old Kahuna
Windows XP Pro SR1 won't boot, won't reinstall.
I have a plain vanilla Dell Dimension 2400. Recently it started
refusing to boot. At powerup it goes to the Startup Options Screen, where
I can choose between booting normally, or in to safe mode, or to the last
working configuration. Regardless of the selection I make it proceeds only
a second in to that bootup and stops dead. I never get close to a login or
a desktop.
The Dell system has a powerful hardware testing suite located on a
utility partion. At power on I elected to boot to the utility partition
and ran every test they had for the system's hardware. Every test was
passed, there seems to be no problem with the hardware.
Then I tried to access the Recovery Console on the Dell OS CD. I
booted to the Dell Windows XP disk that came with the computer. Whether I
tried the Aumoted Recovery or the manual Recovery Console option the system
goes straight to looking at the disk, I get a message "Examining 38147MB
Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi ..." I never get to any options or
anything else. At this point the system locks up and goes nowhere.
Finally I tried to re-install the OS. Whether I choose to go the
Recovery route or the Install route I always end up stopped dead at the
very start of the disk test. The system announces that it is going to test
the hard drive and then stops responding or functioning. I left this on
over night just in case it was a long silent test, but it seems the process
is just stopped. This is odd because the hard drive passed a battery of
read/write/seek tests during the diagnostic testing done earlier.
Any ideas folks?
I have a plain vanilla Dell Dimension 2400. Recently it started
refusing to boot. At powerup it goes to the Startup Options Screen, where
I can choose between booting normally, or in to safe mode, or to the last
working configuration. Regardless of the selection I make it proceeds only
a second in to that bootup and stops dead. I never get close to a login or
a desktop.
The Dell system has a powerful hardware testing suite located on a
utility partion. At power on I elected to boot to the utility partition
and ran every test they had for the system's hardware. Every test was
passed, there seems to be no problem with the hardware.
Then I tried to access the Recovery Console on the Dell OS CD. I
booted to the Dell Windows XP disk that came with the computer. Whether I
tried the Aumoted Recovery or the manual Recovery Console option the system
goes straight to looking at the disk, I get a message "Examining 38147MB
Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi ..." I never get to any options or
anything else. At this point the system locks up and goes nowhere.
Finally I tried to re-install the OS. Whether I choose to go the
Recovery route or the Install route I always end up stopped dead at the
very start of the disk test. The system announces that it is going to test
the hard drive and then stops responding or functioning. I left this on
over night just in case it was a long silent test, but it seems the process
is just stopped. This is odd because the hard drive passed a battery of
read/write/seek tests during the diagnostic testing done earlier.
Any ideas folks?