Have an old Dell Dimension 4400. Has been working fine until 2 days ago.
Went to start pc, get Dell splash screen, and then got the "We're sorry for the inconvience, but Windows did not start sucessfully....".
If I let it go thru countdown, the W-XP splash screen comes up, and the little progress bar/cursor starts to travel across and then freezes at the end of it's first pass. No go from there.
If I choose Safe Mode, Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt, or Return to Last Known Good Configuration, I get same result once system gets to W-XP splash screen.
This was a PC given to my sons and it did not come with W-XP op disks.
Don't know much on how to actually use a MS-DOS boot disk, but did create one of those off other W-XP machine. When placed in Dell and start PC, it recognizes A:\ drive and give the A:\ prompt. When I try to change the directory to C: by using "A:\> cd c:", I get "invalid drive specification" message.
Opened PC and checked all connections. Look good.
Would like help on how to approach and solve this problem.
Let me know if any other info needed.
Thanks....ZiaMan

Note: Need to change one description from above - When choose Safe Mode or Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt, the system starts it's run down through the various drivers/files and then stops and freezes after loading the last "....Windows\System32\Drivers\agp440.sys" driver. Program freezes and does not advance from there.
ZiaMan

Sounds like a hard drive problem or a corrupted file system.

Download either of these and create a bootable CD from the .iso file

XP Recovery Console
Another XP Recovery Console

You don't burn the iso file itself to CD., you create a CD from the iso file using your CD burning software. There is a good freeware burner called DeepBurner which will do this. Another called ISO Recorder is also very easy to use.

Boot the CD and at the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console.
Next, choose which XP installation you want to login to. Normally this will be 1.
Lastly you will be asked for the Administrator password. Just press the Enter key as the Administrator does not have a password (unless you gave it one, then you would enter it).

From the command prompt, enter: chkdsk c: /r

Allow it to complete undisturbed.

This post has been edited by Ztruker: Mar 8 2008, 08:12 PM

Ztruker,
Great, thanks for the review and feedback. Will follow and get back to you on Sunday with results.
ZM

ZTruker,

Update:
I created the XP-Recovery boot CD . Placed in CD drive of Dell.
Issue now seems to be that the Dell PC is booting to the floopy drive. Does not go to CD drive.
Tested CD in other working PC machine. To confirm what should happen if I did this boot CD creation correctly, here is what I get on good PC that does boot from CD drive:

Press any Key to start from CD ( pressed <ENTER>)
Set-up is inspecting hardware configuration.
Windows-XP Set-up
(> program begins to LOAD files)
(> program then displays Set-up Start W-XP)

W-XP Home Edition Set-up
Welcome to Set-up
This portion of the Set-up program prepares MS W-XP to run on your computer
* To Set-up W-XP now, presss <ENTER>
* To repair W-XP installation using Recovery Console, press R (I take it that this is the "R" from your instructions)
* To quit Set-up without installing W-XP, press F3.

In this instance on my good PC I pressed F3 to quit.

So the question is, how to I get the Dell to see boot disk in CD drive. It seems I can't get to the BIOS set-up to change the order of drive boot-up.
Is there a smaller program that is "Floppy size 1.44 MB" I can get on a floppy to help me get to re-direct to the CD drive with the recovery program?

Or is there something else here that I mising because of lack of knowledge?
Thanks for your help.

Z,
Never mind. I got to BIOS and changed order. Will let you know results.
..ZM

Ztruker,
Here are results.
After going thru recovery and then performing Chkdsk c: /r, I restarted computer.
This time the progression cursor at the W-XP splash screen traveled thru twice then hung up on the 3rd pass. Frozen at that point.
I performed reboot again using recovery boot disk, and performed Chkdsk again.
After chkdsk completion, selected Safe Mode. Got Safe Mode display in the 4 corners of display then it went to BSOD.
Turned off, turned on, and performed recovery + chkdsk again.
When got thru chkdsk. When restarted I got the following message:
A problem has been detected......
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
If this is the first time..............
Technical Info
Stop: 0x0000000A (0x0000014C, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804f1be2)

Performed recovery and chkdsk again.
Let start normally. Progression cursor goes thru twice as before and freezes on 3rd passs.
Restart, chose Safe Mode, got thru W-XP start up thru to list of Users. Tried to choose user but mouse doesn't work.
Turned off, restarted. Chose Return to Last Known Good Configuration, and goes to W-XP splash screen but again progression cursor goes thru twice and freezes on third pass.
Ran Recovery and chkdsk one more time for the heck of it. Got same result of W-XP splash screen freezing at start of 3rd pass of progression cursor.

Anything else I can use to test and/or recover bad file system? Or..... is it time to get new hard drive?
Thanks..Ziaman

This post has been edited by ZiaMan: Mar 10 2008, 09:50 AM

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Stop: 0x0000000A is often associated with defective memory (RAM).

Do you have two sticks of ram in your computer? If so, remove one and try booting again. If it hangs, swap the removed one with the one still in the computer and try booting again. If it's a single defective memory stick this will find it. If both are defective (unlikely but possible) you can run memory diagnostics and see if they find any problems.

There are two programs that are normally used to test computer memory, Memtest86 and Microsoft Memory Diagnostic. They are available from the following locations:

Memtest86
Microsoft Memory Diagnostic

Both can run from a bootable diskette or CD.

Ztruker,
Good morning. Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Swapped out each stick of ram (512 ea) and rebooted after each swap out. Got same results - W-XP splash screen then freeze on third pass of cursor.
Pulled 2 sets of matched RAM from good PC (512 x 2) and tried those just in case both sticks in Dell bad.
This time I thought this was the solution, but right after W-Xp splash screen, screen did some funky color changes of the logo, and then prog went straight to the "A problem has been detected...." screen with the same first message (IRQL_Not_Less_or_Equal), and then the same Technical Information noted below. Turned off PC at this point.
So just to play it out, I ran Recovery boot disk again after replacing orig RAM to Dell, and got same results as before after running the chkdsk.
Did not get to run the Memtest. Do I need to do that first before moving on, or are there any other next steps?
Thanks...ZiaMan

This post has been edited by ZiaMan: Mar 11 2008, 05:00 AM

run memtest...

Running memtest won't hurt but since you completely swapped out the memory I don't see that it will do much good.

Another cause of IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Stop: 0x0000000A errors is corrupted device drivers or a defective device. This is often a video driver/card problem.

Power down the computer, then open it up and remove or disconnect everything inside except the hard drive, video card (if it's a PCI/AGP) and 1 stick of memory. Disconnect any CD/DVD drives. Disconnect everything externally except the keyboard and monitor then try booting.

Do you per chance have another video card that you could try? If so and the above doesn't make any difference, try a different video card.

Thanks happy rck and Ztruker.
I ran the Memtest last night. Did not get good results. Ran for only 1 min 43 secs.
Here is some of the info:

Pass 2%
Test 51%
Test #3 [Moving Inversions, 8 bit pattern]
Testing: 120K-1024M 1024M
Pattern: 08080808

Wall time Cached Rsvd(?) Mem MemMap Cache ECC Test Pass Errors ECC Errors
0:01:43 1024M 168K e820-Std On Off Std 0 0
--------
Unexpected Interrupt - Halting

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

Ztruker - will perform your recommendations this evening. Do have an extra ATI 9600XT can swap in after trying first steps. Will let you know results this evening (Wed).

Thanks again for both your help.
..ZiaMan

try Windows Memory Diagnostic get it here

Good morning. Latest update. Ran Windows Mem Diag. Ran std testing first, then let Extended Testing run overnight.
Results:

Standard Test
> By Memory Module
WMD found 59 errors. The errors distributed by memory module is:
Bank 'DIMM0': Slot 'J5G3' .... 59 errors
'DIMM1': Slot 'J5G1'.......0

> By Test
LRAND 11
WMATS+ 16
WINC 32
=================================================
Extended Test
> By Memory Module - 442 errors
Bank 'DIMM0": Slot 'J5G3'......442 errors
'DIMM1': Slot 'J5G1' .........0

> By Test
LRAND 20
WMATS+ 35
WINC 72

WSTRIDE-6 8
WCHCKR3 6
ERAND 301

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did not get to do hardware unconnecting and swap out testing. Hopefully can get to that tonight after work.
Thanks again..ZiaMan

the bad stick of ram should be removed...ram should not have any errors...it can and will cause all sorts of problems...