Windows - boot up problem

[Mr Toad]

A friend of mine turned her PC off at the mains before Windows had completed shutting down, and now it won't go again. It starts up OK, runs all the health checks OK, gets to the bit in XP where the little bar is moving across the screen, hesitates, and then reboots :evil:

I assume that something has been corrupted on the hard disk

Is there an easy way to repair this, or am I going to have to attach the drive to my pc & copy off all her files before installing windows afresh :?:

thanks for any help

[fizzwheel]

You could try booting off of the XP CD and then letting the install routine run. It'll find her orginal XP installation and ask you if you want to repair it.

Backing everything up before you start is a good idea though.

[mysteryjimbo]

Does it work in Safe mode?

Press F8 before you reach that windows screen.

Could be a driver issue. Or overheating CPU (perhaps the fan is broke?)

[Grinch]

Well it sounds like your MBR is OK as its making to the lovely OS loading bar, so I would try booting into safemode and having a look.
Was there any updates installed before that last 'turn off' as they could be the root reason why it did not reboot.
If you don't want to spend to much time farting about with it you can just install windows over the top. You'll look most of your setting, but along as you pick the install path it will leave all the data alone.
Hope you back up though.

[Mr Toad]

Done the F8 Safe mode - no joy, just reboots

If I repair the installation how much will I loose ?

[fizzwheel]

Done the F8 Safe mode - no joy, just reboots

If I repair the installation how much will I loose ?

Normally I used to find that I didnt loose anything if I repaired the installation. What however you might find you need to do if the repair is succesful is to re-install all your applications again.

Often though the repair didnt work and I ended up formating the thing and starting again.

Personally if you have the time and you have got the data off of the machine that you want / need to keep. I would just format it and start again.

[kciN]

Sounds like a virus, re-booting, but you said it only happened after she turned it off to quick. :?

Have you tried going into BIOS and setting everything to default first?
Hit DEL key on start up, should get you in.
Find the return to default settings mode and ok, then re-boot, see if that makes a difference.

If not you may need to reboot with a BOOT Disk and go into DOS Mode.
You could use old DOS commands to back up files, but very labourious!

Ie.
c:\copy *.* a: - and all that, but that really is last thing if you need to save files.
(Copying to CD doesn't work in DOS mode, floppy only)
After that you may have to fdisk it and reformat...

[Mr Toad]

cheers guys

yep, I have checked the BIOS and made sure everything is set to the defaults

hmm, I hadn't thought that it could be a virus - the machine was running AVG so it should have been protected, but I know her kids do download things :wink:

I would normally remove the hard disk & copy all the files off it before tinkering with it, however it's one of those glass case PCs - I built it for her last year -

Akasa (http://www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/cases/spec_ak_chc.htm)

In order to remove the hard disk I need to completely dismantle the damn thing, which I'd rather not do. I'll have a hunt for a long EIDE cable and see if I can link it to my main machine - failing that I'll cannibalise a USB hard drive & use the components from that so I can use a longer cable

Or then again, I'll just pop in a spare hard disk, install a fresh copy of XP and configure the old drive as a slave & copy the files off that way


Oh dear, too many ways to kill a cat :lol:

[Grinch]

It could also be a hardware fault... thus causing the machine to reboot on the bootup.
Have you tried taking everything out to the minumum and booting.
I would look at memory to as the system boot it could be loading the memory, finding a fault on it and then crashing with a reboot.
The are a few freeware memory tools you could use to check it out if you boot from floppy of something.
Lot of the linux Live CD's come with a memory checker if you can find one or build one to a CD from a another PC.
Also if you can run linux from the Live CD it would tell you that your hardware is fine and the problem as windows related. It will also give you access to you disks to move data about.

[Grinch]

I think this is the rescue CD I use..

http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

There are lots of other out there... very handy for testing hardware...

[5v5 rider]

Hi mate,


I had the same probl;em a couple of weeks ago, at 1st I thought it was my CPU overheating due to dust build up on fans so gave em a good clean up, still no joy, stripped the pc down to basic config (HDD, 1x memory, removed dvd/cd drive, still no joy) turned out to be a dodgy PSU, bought one for £25 and hey presto. It turned out that although it was starting to boot it was just unstable, have you got a spare psu or a mate that doesnt mind you butchering theirs to see if thats what it is.

Hope this helps

Phil

[mysteryjimbo]

Hi mate,


I had the same probl;em a couple of weeks ago, at 1st I thought it was my CPU overheating due to dust build up on fans so gave em a good clean up, still no joy, stripped the pc down to basic config (HDD, 1x memory, removed dvd/cd drive, still no joy) turned out to be a dodgy PSU, bought one for £25 and hey presto. It turned out that although it was starting to boot it was just unstable, have you got a spare psu or a mate that doesnt mind you butchering theirs to see if thats what it is.

Hope this helps

Phil

Thatd be unuual at 1 year old.

A repair will work. Or a fresh install to a different directory (Windows or WINNT) making sure you leave the filesystem intact!. Quick format is a big no no

[robaker]

Your XP install/repair disk should have, alongside the repair option, something called the recovery console or something like that. It's like an updated version of DOS for XP - i.e. no graphics, just command line.

Within that there should be the checkdisk utility (chkdsk, if I recall recorrectly). This will scan the filesystem and look for problems in that area, which is what is most-likely got stuffed when the system was originally switched-off prematurely (in my opinon).

Rob

[5v5 rider]

[/quote]pearsoph wrote:
Hi mate,


I had the same probl;em a couple of weeks ago, at 1st I thought it was my CPU overheating due to dust build up on fans so gave em a good clean up, still no joy, stripped the pc down to basic config (HDD, 1x memory, removed dvd/cd drive, still no joy) turned out to be a dodgy PSU, bought one for £25 and hey presto. It turned out that although it was starting to boot it was just unstable, have you got a spare psu or a mate that doesnt mind you butchering theirs to see if thats what it is.

Hope this helps

Phil


Thatd be unuual at 1 year old.

Yeah I know that would be unusual but mine was just over 1 year old, admittedly the pc was on for prob about 12-16 hours a day but it seemed to fry it in that short space of time..

Only offerin advice on my own experience.

Phil

[TSM]

You are all going over kill.

Why not first try pressing F8 and selecting the option that says 'Last Known Good Configuration'. This is revert some things to the way they were the last time the system was booted, this especialy helps if your system has just had an update then will not start etc.., its helped me in many a situation.

[Mr Toad]

Why not first try pressing F8 and selecting the option that says 'Last Known Good Configuration'.


Been there, done that :wink:

I'll have another bash at it tonight, and let you know how I got on

[mysteryjimbo]

Why not first try pressing F8 and selecting the option that says 'Last Known Good Configuration'.


Been there, done that :wink:

I'll have another bash at it tonight, and let you know how I got on

It'll only work if you've not logged in since you had a problem.

[Grinch]

I'm starting to think its the power supply... having worked on building PC I know how funny they sometimes can be... though normally they just go off.

[5v5 rider]

I didnt think it would be the power supply when it happened to me as I also worked on Pc support rebuilding PC's and hadnt come across the problem often as they DO usually just switch off ,but sometimes its got enough to run BIOS but when booting into windows and interrogating the HDD it seems to take more power and its then that it falls over, at the very least a cheap power supply wont break the bank and even if it isnt that then you can keep the PSU as a spare!! Just an easy way to find out if its that, borrow a psu from another pc (as long it has the relevant power connex to go in your motherboard).

Hope this helps

Phil

[Mr Toad]

Good plan - I have a spare PSU so will give that a go

All I need to do is find some time to actually look at the thing . .

[Swiss]

Also in the Recovery Console there is an option to Fixboot. I have found on a couple of occasions that even if the Chkdsk has run OK it needs to create a new boot file.
Fixboot does this for you. I've rescued a couple of PC's this way, although it does sound to me to be like a power issue.

One of the other things to check is the Capacitors on the mother board. I've had very simular issues when I've had a blown capacitor on the Mother board, you can tell if they are kabut as the tops will be raised and you'll often see some leakage.

Good luck with it.