Windows XP startup problem

[swirly]

So a friend (Kat) is having a problem with her windows install. It crashed on her and now its restarting every time she tries to boot the computer. She logged onto IM on her parents computer to ask me for help. I'm including a copy of our chat (editted a lil to try and shorten some, but keep all info) so you all can see what I suggested and what the problems are. Can anybody offer further help than the things that I suggested?

Kat: my comptuer is dead
Kat: it like, froze up
Kat: and i restarted it by turning it off
Kat: and then it froze up again and i restarted again, and now it wont go into windows anymore, it just keeps on giving me the boot log thing
swirly: hmm...so its booting to the loading screen, but won't go any further?
Kat: right
swirly: is there a safe mode in xp you can try?
Kat: did my harddrive crash?:(
Kat: well when i say to go into safe mode it still just restarts and goes back to the log screen thing
Kat: like when it says 'start windows normally' 'safe mode' blehblehbleh
swirly: it never gets past that?
Kat: nope
swirly: well...its going to that part so it seems to be seeing that windows was installed on it...so its accessing the harddrive and seeing something.
Kat: virus maybe?
swirly: could be...hard to say.
swirly: it sounds like something happened to your windows...so...first thing to try I guess would be to try booting to a windows xp cd and do the repair option
Kat: i dont have an xp cd...
Kat: my computer just came installed with it
Kat: i just got a prepackaged computer
swirly: hmm...well it should have came with a restore cd or something
Kat: is a recovery disk the same as a repair disk?
swirly: it might have a repair option, but more often the disk that comes with preinstalled comps just resets them to the factory defaults...so back to how you first got it...which means you lose everything on it
Kat: so basically my only hope is to find my parents repair disc?
swirly: well it would be a normal windows install disk. Those generally have a repair option
Kat: well i can look but ive never been able to find it before so not much hope of me finding one now
swirly: should probably try this
swirly: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;Q314079
Kat: my computer upstairs doesnt have a floppy disc drive...
swirly: if you want to potentially waste a cd...you could try the boot floppy steps using a cd...your computer can boot to a cd so theoretically it should work the same...I've never tried it though so could be a waste of a cd too
swirly: this is probably over you but...
swirly: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Main_Page
this is a version of linux....its special though. What it does is they give you an iso to download and burn to cd. That cd then can be put into a computer and it will boot and run linux off of that cd. You can then use that working linux running off the cd to access files on the other comp to copy them off (cd comes with burning software) or it should have network stuff working so might be able to move stuff to another comp. I've never done any of this...but its an option you could consider if there are things you want to save really bad

She decided to go to bed and deal with the computer tomorrow. I'm hoping to have some more information by then. So will putting the files for a boot floppy onto a cd work and are there any other things to try?

[kandrathe]

Sounds like a trashed boot image.

I always verify the POST works, and attempt to go into BIOS and review the settings in there as well. If you can get to the BIOS, and the machine is stable that far you can rule out most hardware problems. You might still have peripheral or other add-on hardware issues, but the core Mobo, Power, Ram would be working.

Then it would be the OS, and in the symptom you describe it appears to fail in the boot loader phase. In order to repair you will need a bootable XP or repair CD.

[Taem]

I made myself a guide for all the trouble I often deal with, with PC's. To further expand on the Restore steps, here is what I do: (I have edited my document to make it more readible on these boards)

XP-SYSTEM-RESTORE-DOCUMENT

XP Recovery Steps
1. Boot from Windows XP CD
2. Press “r”
3. Select the hard drive with Windows; at Command Prompt:
4. Map (write these down)
5. Chkdsk c: /p /f
6. Bootcfg /scan
7. Reboot and see if everything works now. If not:

XP System Restore Tool
1. Restart
2. F8 – Select the Hard drive with Windows
3. Safe mode with Command Prompt
4. Log on as Admin
5. Load Command Prompt and type: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstui.exe
6. Reboot and see if everything works now. If not:

XP Restore
1. Attrib –H –R –S C:\Boot.ini
2. Del C:\Boot.ini
3. BootCFG /Rebuild
4. Fixboot
5. Reboot and see if everything works now. If not:

XP System Error Fix
1. Boot from Windows XP CD
2. Press “r”
3. Select the hard drive with Windows; at Command Prompt:
4. cd System32\config
5. copy system c:\
6. copy software c:\
7. cd repair
8. copy repair\system
9. copy repair\software
10. cd “c:\”
11. REN system.bak
12. REN software.bak



Secrets:
When booting from Windows CD, when prompted to press a function key before recovery steps, press and hold F2 to access the Restore Mode. You must have a Backup to restore from made by Windows ASR Wizard.

Create a Bootable Windows Disk: In a command prompt, format drive “a:” and copy ntldr and ntdetect.com from the I386 folder on the Windows XP CD. Copy your current boot.ini file to this disk.

DIR
Dir *.exe (will list all .exe files)
Dir *.cab (will list all .cab files)
EXPAND
Expand “d:i386\driver.cab” /d /f:*
Expand –F:ntoskrnl.exe “destination”

[swirly]

I made myself a guide for all the trouble I often deal with, with PC's. To further expand on the Restore steps, here is what I do: (I have edited my document to make it more readible on these boards)

I showed her your list and she wrote it down. She also found a Windows XP cd which is a good sign. There is another problem though. She says:

Kat: i guess the problem im having is the select the harddrive with windows
Kat: it gives me two options to choose. minint and then some numbers. Not sure which one to pick >< maybe that means my harddrive crashed?

So it looks like windows can't find the partition correctly to me. Which would mean either the partition table is messed up or the drive itself is messing up. Currently I'm trying to explain to her how to get into bios to see if it is recognizing the harddrive correctly. So...if the partition table is messed up, is there anyway to correct that without data loss or is she looking at starting from scratch? Assuming the harddrive works at all.

[swirly]

More news! Good news!

Kat: fixed it
swirly: oh? how?
Kat: i figured out it was my mouse
Kat: but first, i said, ok, im just gonna try to follow his instructions with the options they give me. so i just clicked 1, and entered his commands and stuff and it checked /p but wouldnt check /f or do the bootcfg thing
Kat: but i restarted and it let me into windows
Kat: so i typed in my password and it froze up again while it was loading stuff.
Kat: got my parents mouse and now its working fine
Kat: yeah so i dont know why the mouse would cause all that

Not sure I understand what happened, but it seems to be working now.

[Griselda]

More news! Good news!
Not sure I understand what happened, but it seems to be working now.

Heh, she went to the login screen and couldn't log in, and that was maybe her only issue all along? :lol: