XP Home will not boot - restarts

[GTS]

This issue has affected at least three people I know recently, and I just
cannot find a solution short of reformatting and a fresh install:

Windows will not load - you get the screen with choices to boot in safe
mode, last good config etc.
Whatever choice is made, the PC just reboots back to the same screen.

So then try booting from the XP CD, and choosing R for repair or recovery
console - you are asked to confirm where Windows is installed - in this case
it already has the correct default path as C:/windows, so press enter - and
it just reboots again, back to the install menu again...

So any ideas anyone? If I can't even get into the recovery console, I don't
know how I can fix anything! The HDD is correctly detected by the BIOS, so
does not appear faulty. Although the PC boots fine from Win98 / ME boot
disks, ofcourse I can't see anything on the c: drive as it's NTFS. Mind you,
one puzzling thing is that, using these boot disks, MSDOS does not see the
C: drive at all - i.e you can't CD to any drive letter other than A: Floppy,
D:CD, or the RAMDRIVE the boot disk installs. I thought MSDOS would still
see the drive, just not be able to read any files on it?
Any advice anyone please?
Graham

 

[Phil]

Dos does not see, read, or write to ntfs drives.
Repair install:

Boot from the XP cd, and when prompted hit enter to begin setup. (do not
press R for the recovery console) Press F8 to accept the license agreement.
It will then search and find your existing XP install. Select it, and choose
R for repair. Back up any important data files in case something goes wrong.

Note: you will have to re-install updates from windows update.

 

[Guest]

The way I solved this problem was to take the hard disc out and make it a
slave drive in another PC. That PC will fix the errors on the disc. return it
to the original PC as Master and you will find the pC will boot up. Not sure
what causes this in the first place.
David

 

[GTS]

Thank you, I will give this a try. Any ideas what seems to be causing this
'epidemic' at the moment? Semantec and Mcafee say there are no high-risk
virus threats at present....

 

[GTS]

The way I solved this problem was to take the hard disc out and make it a
slave drive in another PC. That PC will fix the errors on the disc. return it
to the original PC as Master and you will find the pC will boot up. Not sure
what causes this in the first place.
David

Oh thanks I will try this - on the other PC's similarly affected I did out
the drives into another PC as slave, but only so I could copy of any
documents needed prior to formatting them! I never tried putting them back
into the original machine before formatting, to see if they would work!
Graham

 

[Phil]

You're welcome. It could be any number of things, spyware, bad drivers,
failing hardware, the list goes on and on.

 

[red belair]

how did you make out?

Oh thanks I will try this - on the other PC's similarly affected I did out
the drives into another PC as slave, but only so I could copy of any
documents needed prior to formatting them! I never tried putting them back
into the original machine before formatting, to see if they would work!
Graham