XP Pro Hangs at Boot - Intermittently

[Marilyn]

A few months ago, my Dell Inspiron 8200 running XP Pro
began to hang between the power on and the Windows
screen. Sometimes it works fine. Other times I need to
power it off then on, up to four times to get it to go
all the way to Windows. I have added no devices, added
no software (other than MSFT critical updates) that I can
think of.

Saw a knowledge base about fixmbr, but I didn't see any
reference to that as being useful for similar problems in
this forum.
thanks for any ideas.

 

[Guest]

Marilyn,

Please check Event Viewer (Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer) for possible errors.

Additionally, you may want to:

Check for spyware:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/windowsxpsolutions.htm

And Optimize Windows Startup:
How to optimize Windows XP for the best performance:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindows.htm

Good Luck!

 

[Joe Parish]

MArilyn:
Does it hang before the XP log shows up? If it does you're most likely
looking at hardware failure, a blown boot.ini or a bad mbr

Are you able to get into the recovery onsole?
if so, try running a fixboot /rebuild, should be the easiest thing to
start with and the least likely to cause additional problems. You can
try the fixmbr if that doesn't do the trick, but if something goes
wrong it could leave you worse off than where you satrted.

If it *does* get to the XP logo, are you able to get into safe mode?
If so, you could try a cvleanboot or a system restore. If neither of
those work, try taking a look at MSKB 307545

best of luck
Joe

 

[Guest]

It is always before the XP logo, but it doesn't happen
every time. I have started my computer three times today
and no problem. But, I'm sure whatever is causing it
hasn't gone away, as I haven't done anything new.

(Sorry, I had a crisis at my work over the weekend and
haven't had time to try any of the suggestions yet.)