WINXP Boot Problems

[pjhjones]

I have a WINXP machine. The other day it was reported to me that it was
having boot up problems. (this machine should almost never be shut down)

I went and attempted to boot the machine. I found that it asks if I want to
boot in normal or safe mode. I select normal. It acts like it wants to boot
shows the windows logo, flashes all the data and then asks again if I want to
boot in normal or safe mode.

If I select safe mode if shows a bunch of stuff across the screen.

I went into the BIOS and found that it says that there is no Master IDE
found and that the hard drive is set as slave. I can not change this in the
BIOS.

I took a look at the hard drive and the jumper is set to Master and it is
using the last plug on the ribbon cable. Same as the other three computers in
the room that work just fine.

 

[DL]

Sometimes takes a while to boot in Safe Mode, did you leave it for
sufficient time?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have a WINXP machine. The other day it was reported to me that it was
having boot up problems. (this machine should almost never be shut down)

I went and attempted to boot the machine. I found that it asks if I want
to
boot in normal or safe mode. I select normal. It acts like it wants to
boot
shows the windows logo, flashes all the data and then asks again if I want
to
boot in normal or safe mode.

If I select safe mode if shows a bunch of stuff across the screen.

Yes, there is a scrolling list of all the drivers loaded. What's important
is whether this list finishes populating, or hangs. If the system hangs,
it's important to note what the last line is - the problem is with the
*next* one, the one you can't see.

At the screen where you select Safe Mode, turn on "Enable Boot Logging".
This will produce a file that you can copy off and read on another system to
see what the boot is having problems with.

I went into the BIOS and found that it says that there is no Master IDE
found and that the hard drive is set as slave. I can not change this in
the
BIOS.

This is changed on the hard disk if you have IDE drives. SATA drives don't
have jumpers.

Some systems use Cable Select settings.

You might consider clearing the CMOS settings - power off, disconnect the
power cable, remove the battery, find and short the CMOS CLEAR jumper and
then put it back, put back the battery, and power up again. If you were
successful, the BIOS will want to rescan the basic hardware.

Now, there's a cheap trick that can sometimes help with boot problems, if
the cause is a corrupted page file. You simply attach the drive to
another system, locate the file 'pagefile.sys' in the root of that drive,
and delete it. Put the drive back, and restart. I've had to force a
restart, but when the pagefile was the problem, the second boot works fine.

HTH
-pk

 

[pjhjones]

How do I know if it actually finished loading? It lists a bunch of drivers
stops for about 5 seconds or so and then reboots.

At the screen I do not have a choice to select "Enable Boot Logging"

I can select
Safe Mode
Something about loading with netoworking
Something about comand prompt
Last known good configuration
and Normal

I have attempted all five options and all of them end up with the computer
rebooting withing about 10 seconds or so.

 

[Gerry]

Posting a complete copy of the Stop error report would help.

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Keep pressing the F8
key during Start-Up and select option - Disable automatic restart on
system failure.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure until you have
resolved the problem. Check for variants of the Stop Error message.

Are there one or two hard drives in the computer?

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[pjhjones]

This is what I found:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

Technical Information

***STOP: 0x000000ED (0X86571900, 0XC0000006, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)

 

[Gerry]

Is the computer a Desktop or a Laptop.

Unmountable Boot Volume
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302

0xC0000006 means the Application failed to initialise. Are you able to
provide the file name on the last line before the system restarts or
stops as it may now do?

Background information on Stop error code
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms797142.aspx

0x000000ED: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
The kernel mode I/O subsystem attempted to mount the boot volume and it
failed. This error also might occur during an upgrade to Win XP on
systems that use higher throughput ATA disks or controllers with
incorrect cabling. In some cases, your system might appear to work
normally after you restart.
Source: http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[pjhjones]

Inserted WINXP disk and ran CHKDSK /r. This appears to have solved my
problem. Windows now boots just fine.

 

[Gerry]

Thanks for reporting how you solved the problem.


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~