WXP won't boot

[badgolferman]

WXP SP1 won't boot into normal mode. It will boot into Safe Mode. It
just sits at the splash screen and the progress indicator goes by.
This occured after a reboot by Drive Image 2002 which was backing up
the hard drive ironically.

I have gone in through Safe Mode and done a Scandisk and disabled
nearly everything via MSCONFIG. I suspect registry corruption, but is
it possible the boot sector is messed up if it can boot into Safe Mode?

How can I recover from this quickly? My wife needs to use the computer
to do online classes and tests. Will the XP installation disk help in
any way? I am reasonably capable of fixing the Windows OS so I am
willing to get down and dirty if needed. Thank you for your help.

 

[Dave Miller]

You could check to see if 1) press F8 and tell it to boot from last known
good configuration (good luck) or 2) you may have a restore point is the 2nd
easiest way. Start/programs/accessories/system tools/restore point and pick
the last good day with a restore point.

From there, see MSFT Q315341 @
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxp
and/or
Q308041 @
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308041&sd=RMVP

Good Luck
Dave

 

[David Candy]

Create a boot log. Type msconfig in Start Run, Boot.ini tab, then try to boot normally.

 

[badgolferman]

David Candy, 6/7/2005, 8:35:10 AM,

Create a boot log. Type msconfig in Start Run, Boot.ini tab, then try
to boot normally.

Please explain. If I create a boot log from a Safe Mode boot what will
this do to help it boot normally?

 

[David Candy]

It won't help to boot normally as all. It will say where it stopped doing anything and hopefully pinpoint the problem area as MS hides info behind that stupid screen. The /sos switch list drivers to the screen rather than hiding it.

A bootlog applies to your next boot (well till something tells it to stop making one).

 

[badgolferman]

David Candy, 6/7/2005, 8:50:24 AM,

It won't help to boot normally as all. It will say where it stopped
doing anything and hopefully pinpoint the problem area as MS hides
info behind that stupid screen. The /sos switch list drivers to the
screen rather than hiding it.

A bootlog applies to your next boot (well till something tells it to
stop making one).

Okay, I have tried this on my W2K machine with the /sos and /bootlog
option enabled in msconfig. But I can't find the boot log. Where
would it be located?

 

[David Candy]

c:\windows\ntbtlog

If it hangs at "Please Wait" the log doesn't get written to file. I presume it didn't hang during driver loading according to sos?

 

[badgolferman]

David Candy, 6/7/2005, 9:46:58 AM,

c:\windows\ntbtlog

If it hangs at "Please Wait" the log doesn't get written to file. I
presume it didn't hang during driver loading according to sos?

I have found the file on my W2K machine here at work. When I return
home later I will look at the WXP machine that is affected. The
machine does hang at the Please Wait... screen so I may be out of luck
in diagnosing the problem.

I will try a System Restore first, Last Known Good Configuration
second, an in-place upgrade or complete reinstallation of Windows last.
Any other suggestions are welcome.

 

[David Candy]

Do Last Known Good Configuration first. This is the boot configuration of the last time you sucessfully booted.

 

[badgolferman]

WXP SP1 won't boot into normal mode. It will boot into Safe Mode. It
just sits at the splash screen and the progress indicator goes by.
This occured after a reboot by Drive Image 2002 which was backing up
the hard drive ironically.

I have gone in through Safe Mode and done a Scandisk and disabled
nearly everything via MSCONFIG. I suspect registry corruption, but is
it possible the boot sector is messed up if it can boot into Safe
Mode?

How can I recover from this quickly? My wife needs to use the
computer to do online classes and tests. Will the XP installation
disk help in any way? I am reasonably capable of fixing the Windows
OS so I am willing to get down and dirty if needed. Thank you for
your help.

The suggested methods were unable to restore my computer to working
order. I was forced to restore a week-old image back to the computer.
Fortunately that worked and very few data files were lost, if any.
Thank God for Drive Image and especially the Image Explorer that comes
with it where you can extract individual files from images.