I am working on a friends pc (Compaq w/ AMD Sempron), which hangs on booting on the gagp30kx.sys driver. I cannot boot into any of the safe modes, or boot from a CD. When booting from an XP CD, it gets to the point where it says "Starting Windows", and dies. No CD activity, or hard drive activity. Here is my conumdrum... I can't get anywhere in the boot process to make any changes to the system. I can't get to a command prompt, can't get to the repair console, can't get anywhere. I need some serious advice.

gagp30kx.sys is a special agp driver for via-chipset motherboards and works similarly to the agp440.sys, but your second issue is a puzzler. It sounds like you are either using bad media (cd) or your cd is failing.

Have you tried a second disk?

Yes, I have tried two cd's, with the same result. The machine does not have a floppy, and there is no provision in the bios to boot to a usb drive.

Let me clarify a little. I can attempt a boot into safe modes, but they always hang on the gagp30kx driver. Seems that driver is hanging the system no matter how I try to boot.

try booting into vga mode, which is slightly different from safe mode

I don't have that option on the f8 menu. Is there another way to get there? I've never had a problem like this before. I can't even get to a spot where I can reformat.

you don't have enable VGA MODE--fifth one down?

Nope. All I have is Safe Mode, Safe Mode w/ networking, Safe Mode w/command prompt, Last known good config, and Start normally. Sucks, huh?

Step 1

If you have a windows xp cd, start the computer and boot with it and choose recovery console.

Then follow the instructions beginning at STEP 2

If you do not have a Windows XP CD, do the following


download RC.iso from the following link:

http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/rc.iso

You need to burn this image to a CD and boot your computer with it--this is different than burning a file to a CD. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download the following program to another Windows XP machine, install it.

make certain you download the proper installation for your version of windows. Open MY COMPUTER, choose HELP > ABOUT. Note the service pack and get the appropriate version of the iso burner power toy

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

After installation, reboot, then right click the RC.iso file you downloaded above and choose COPY IMAGE TO CD.

Then reboot your broken PC with that CD in the CD-ROM drive.

This will give you a recovery console to use to run

Insert the cd into the non-functioning PC



STEP 2

When boot begins, a windows setup will appear to start, but you will be taken to a recovery console.

You will need to select your windows installation by pressing a number, most likely 1

Windows will ask you for a password

If you have XP home, press enter...there is no password

If you have XP Pro, you need to enter the password you set when you installed your machine with XP Pro.

After entering the password, you will find yourself at a command prompt that looks like this

c:\windows>


type
cd system32
<enter>

cd drivers
<enter>

rename gagp30kx.sys gagp30kx.bak
<enter>

EXIT
<enter>

windows should reboot

oh, remove cd

OK. I downloaded the file, and the iso recorder. I got the iso image burned to a cd, and booted the broken pc with that image. However, it boots just like it did with the regular windows xp cd. I get "press any key to boot from pc", which I do, and then it goes through loading the drivers like it usually does with the xp cd, and then says "Starting Windows" at the bottom of the screen, and locks up. I don't get a recovery console. I hope you love challenges.

bad videocard?

Do you have a second one laying around? (preferably one that uses a different kind of slot--pci, or agp, I think you are using the pci-e)

That is what I would try next

I was able to get it to the recovery console once, but I chose the wrong option, and had to reboot. I'm trying to get it back into recovery. At least now I know it will get there. If I can get it there, I can get it fixed. Thanks very much for your assistance. I think we can close the book on this one.

let's wait

I finally got to the recovery console again. I renamed the file as you suggested, but now xp won't boot, and I have been unsuccessful at getting to the recovery console again. It hangs when loading Mup.sys