XP Pro boot loop...

[Howard Woodard]

I've seen several similar issues but each has had a different slant, and me
being a novice, I'm not sure whether any of them are exactly my situation or
not.

My daughter had a portable USB drive connected to her XP Pro desktop (built
on an ECS 915-M5 mobo) yesterday and was deleting some file from it when her
system just hung. It wouldn't respond to any key input, including
ctrl-alt-del, so after a few minutes she shut it down with the power switch.

Since then it will not start up Windows. It brings up the boot options menu
from which she can select "last known...", "start normal...", various "safe
modes" etc. No matter which she selects, when it gets to where it says that
it is starting up windows it immediately goes back to the boot options
screen.

I've seen some references to a recovery floppy disk but her system doesn't
have a floppy drive - just the CD/DVD optical drive and the internal IDE HDD
system disk.

Any ideas about what happened and what I need to do to fix her system?

Thanks in advance,

Howard Woodard

 

[Howard Woodard]

By the way, my wife's system is also XP Pro, and similarly configured, so if
I need to prepare something to use with my daughter's machine then I can use
it.

==============================================

 

[Gerry]

Howard

What is the computer make and model?

Please post a complete copy of the Stop Error Report.

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure. Check for
variants of the Stop Error message.

Are you saying you do not have a Windows XP Pro CD for the computer?

--


Hope this helps.

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

 

[Gerry]

Howard

Do you have a Windows XP CD for your wife's computer? What is the make
and model of that computer?


--


Hope this helps.

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

 

[Anna]

I've seen several similar issues but each has had a different slant, and
me being a novice, I'm not sure whether any of them are exactly my
situation or not.

My daughter had a portable USB drive connected to her XP Pro desktop
(built on an ECS 915-M5 mobo) yesterday and was deleting some file from it
when her system just hung. It wouldn't respond to any key input,
including ctrl-alt-del, so after a few minutes she shut it down with the
power switch.

Since then it will not start up Windows. It brings up the boot options
menu from which she can select "last known...", "start normal...", various
"safe modes" etc. No matter which she selects, when it gets to where it
says that it is starting up windows it immediately goes back to the boot
options screen.

I've seen some references to a recovery floppy disk but her system doesn't
have a floppy drive - just the CD/DVD optical drive and the internal IDE
HDD system disk.

Any ideas about what happened and what I need to do to fix her system?

Thanks in advance,

Howard Woodard

Howard:
Understand that we're groping at this stage since it's difficult, if not
impossible, to determine whether the problem is hardware or software
related.

Generally speaking, unless it appears definitive that it's a defective
hardware component that's causing the problem it's usually best (at least
initially) to proceed on the basis that the problem is nothing more than a
corrupted (for whatever reason) OS.

First of all, we'll have to assume that the system is malware-free, i.e.,
it's not some virus or other type of malware that's infecting the system and
thus causing the problem you're experiencing. And, of course, I'm also
assuming that the USB external HDD has been disconnected from the system.

Hopefully the XP OS installation CD is either a non-branded or retail
version, not a recovery or restore type of CD provided by an OEM. Generally
speaking if the XP installation CD is of the latter variety one cannot
perform a Repair install as I'm going to describe. Anyway, assuming you can
do so, my inclination would be for you to undertake a Repair install of the
OS and hopefully return the system to a bootable, functional state.

Undertaking a Repair install of the OS is a relatively straightforward
process. It would be roughly akin to making a fresh install of the OS, but
in nearly every case one's existing programs & user-created data would be
retained. Notice I said "nearly". While it would be a rather rare situation
where data would be lost or corrupted as a result of the Repair install, and
as unlikely as it may be, it *could* happen.

So if there are any programs and/or other data on your daughter's present
drive that are absolutely crucial to her and she could not tolerate their
loss, then I would strongly suggest that before undertaking this Repair
install operation that you first either make a "clone" of the existing HDD
(using a disk-cloning or disk-imaging program) or, if that's not practical,
install the HDD in another machine as a secondary HDD so that you can
(hopefully) access the drive and pull off whatever data you want onto some
removable media, e.g., flash drive, CD, etc.

Again, it's a relatively rare event that a loss or corruption of data will
occur even when the Repair install is unsuccessful, but it *can* happen. So
I want you to be aware of this.

Here are the step-by-step instructions that can be found at Microsoft's site
at...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/support/nostart.mspx#2

<quote>
Before performing a repair installation of Windows XP, you should have both
your Windows XP CD and your product key available.

To perform a repair installation of Windows XP

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your computer.

2. Restart your computer. If prompted, press a key to start from the CD-ROM.

3. When the Welcome to Setup page appears, press ENTER on your keyboard.

4. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement page, read the licensing agreement.
Press the PAGE DOWN key to scroll to the bottom of the agreement. Then,
press F8.

5. When prompted, press R to have Windows XP attempt to repair Windows by
reinstalling important Windows components.

The repair and reinstallation process might take more than an hour.
Eventually, Setup prompts you to answer questions just as if you were
installing Windows XP for the first time. For detailed instructions, read
"Install Windows XP" at...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/winxp/install.mspx"
</quote>

Also, here are a number of websites that contain detailed step-by-step
instructions for
undertaking a Repair install. Let me assure you that it's not a difficult
process and not terribly time-consuming. As I've indicated, it's roughly
similar to making a fresh install of the XP OS.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#RI
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=138
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpcdrepair/indexfullpage.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

Assuming the Repair install is successful, you should use an A-V program to
immediately check out the PC for any virus infestation. Also, you will need
to download/install *all* the MS critical updates since SP3. (I'm assuming
that if you undertake this Repair install of the XP OS, you will be doing so
with a XP installation CD that contains SP3). But you can undertake this
Repair install with an XP OS installation CD that contains an earlier SP (or
even no SP) than what is currently on the present system and then later
(assuming a successful Repair install) install the latest SP3.

If the Repair install is not successful, we can go on from there.
Anna

 

[Jim]

I've seen several similar issues but each has had a different slant, and me
being a novice, I'm not sure whether any of them are exactly my situation or
not.

My daughter had a portable USB drive connected to her XP Pro desktop (built
on an ECS 915-M5 mobo) yesterday and was deleting some file from it when her
system just hung. It wouldn't respond to any key input, including
ctrl-alt-del, so after a few minutes she shut it down with the power switch.

Since then it will not start up Windows. It brings up the boot options menu
from which she can select "last known...", "start normal...", various "safe
modes" etc. No matter which she selects, when it gets to where it says that
it is starting up windows it immediately goes back to the boot options
screen.

I've seen some references to a recovery floppy disk but her system doesn't
have a floppy drive - just the CD/DVD optical drive and the internal IDE HDD
system disk.

Any ideas about what happened and what I need to do to fix her system?

Thanks in advance,

Howard Woodard

If the USB drive is still plugged in , remove , reboot .

 

[Howard Woodard]

Yes, it's a retail XP Pro sp2 CD. The computer is a 4 year old custom build
on an ECS 915-M5 motherboard.

=============================================

 

[Howard Woodard]

Hi Gerry. The make and model is a custom build on ECS 915-M5 motherboard.
I can't right-click on My Computer since windows won't start.

============================================

 

[Howard Woodard]

Thanks Anna. Yes, she has the XP CD and it is a retail version. Her
machine uses the McAfee suite for security, virus and malware protection.
Given that the machine first froze in the middle of file deletions on the
external drive and she shut it down with the power switch and the boot
options screen is normal following such a shutdown, I'm inclined to start
first with the assumption that something got corrupted and there is not a
hardware failure. Still could be but I'll start down the software path
first.

I'll try the repair process this Saturday when I go down there and will post
back my results to this thread.

Howard
=================================

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Thanks Anna. Yes, she has the XP CD and it is a retail version. Her
machine uses the McAfee suite for security, virus and malware protection.
Given that the machine first froze in the middle of file deletions on the
external drive and she shut it down with the power switch and the boot
options screen is normal following such a shutdown, I'm inclined to start
first with the assumption that something got corrupted and there is not a
hardware failure. Still could be but I'll start down the software path
first.

I'll try the repair process this Saturday when I go down there and will
post back my results to this thread.

Howard
=================================

There's a cheap trick that sometimes works well to fix cycling reboots.

To perform the trick, you need to not boot from the hard disk, and not to
Windows. I don't think you can use the Recovery Console for it, but you
*can* use a Linux "live" CD, such as Ubuntu. Alternately, you attach the
drive to another XP system. Navigate to the root, locate the file
"pagefile.sys" and delete it. Set the system back the way it was, and
restart. You may have to force a reboot, but if the problem was pagefile
corruption, the second restart will work.

HTH
-pk

 

[John John - MVP]

There's a cheap trick that sometimes works well to fix cycling reboots.

To perform the trick, you need to not boot from the hard disk, and not
to Windows. I don't think you can use the Recovery Console for it,
but you *can* use a Linux "live" CD, such as Ubuntu. Alternately, you
attach the drive to another XP system. Navigate to the root, locate
the file "pagefile.sys" and delete it. Set the system back the way it
was, and restart. You may have to force a reboot, but if the problem
was pagefile corruption, the second restart will work.

How to Delete the Pagefile.sys File in Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255205

John

 

[Howard Woodard]

Thanks John. The KB said that it applied to Win 2000, nothing about XP. I
tried it anyway and the recovery console said that it can't find the file
specified. I then tried "DIR" and it said that an error occurred during
directory enumeration. I then tried CHKDSK /P/R. It said that it was
checking the volume, then it said three times that it was performing
additional checking or recovery and then it said that it had completed
followed by "volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems".

=========================================

 

[Howard Woodard]

I took the drive out of the machine and added it into another one that I
have that runs Vista. When I booted the Vista machine up it detected a
problem with the new drive and automatically ran CHKDSK and found several
problems that it fixed. Thinking that I may have just gotten lucky I put
the disk back into the original machine and it booted up perfectly. I have
no idea why the CHKDSK function with Vista worked but the one on my XP Pro
CD didn't.

Oh well, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'll take my
blessings wherever I find them.

Thanks everyone.

Howard
==============================================