[amazed]

Hope I didn't overlook this problem being addressed before in my search, here goes:
Sometimes it boots up ok but sometimes I have to press a key on my keyboard to make it boot all the way up, any key. When it doesn't boot up all the way, the place it stops is just before the Windows XP copyright screen. Then I press any key and it finished booting up the rest of the way.
I just put together this system and everything else seems to work ok:

A7N8X-X, XP-2600+, 512 DDR-400MHz PC3200, ATI 9800 Pro Sapphire,
XP Pro SP2.

Not sure what else is needed to figure out what's up with this boot situation.

Would appreciate help, thanks.

[Advertisements]

Sounds like a hang at a driver.....reboot until problem recurs, then note the time and check EVENT VIEWER for problems under SYSTEM

Or, reboot and tap the f8 key, reboot in safe mode and watch for the hang (if it does),

[gerryf]

Sounds like a hang at a driver.....reboot until problem recurs, then note the time and check EVENT VIEWER for problems under SYSTEM

Or, reboot and tap the f8 key, reboot in safe mode and watch for the hang (if it does),

[amazed]

I duplicated the boot problem but the event viewer showed nothing different between the normal boot up and the sometimes problem boot up sequence.

I booted up into the SAFE MODE and it went into that ok, the event viewer noted this after the boot into safe:

DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting
to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the
server

Still lost in what to do next. It boots up ok probably 7 out of 10 times.

[gerryf]

My next step would be to run a chkdsk with repair switches.

Start > Run type CMD

at the command prompt, type chkdsk /f /r

Windows will notify you it cannot chk the disk because it is mounted, would you like to chkdsk at next boot. Say yes.

The repair will take a loooonnnnggg time. When complete, windows will reboot.

Go back to event viewer, look for the winlogon event, double click. The report from chkdsk will be there...find anything?

[amazed]

Winlogon event results:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Host.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 44 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 44 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 44 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

120045680 KB total disk space.
5671724 KB in 29407 files.
10384 KB in 1843 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
104164 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
114259408 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
30011420 total allocation units on disk.
28564852 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
c0 86 00 00 1d 7a 00 00 d7 a8 00 00 00 00 00 00 .....z..........
55 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 e9 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 U...............
88 45 c8 00 00 00 00 00 3c cc b8 0c 00 00 00 00 .E......<.......
f6 46 a9 00 00 00 00 00 24 aa 05 9a 00 00 00 00 .F......$.......
5e ea d7 dd 06 00 00 00 7a 0f 23 8d 07 00 00 00 ^.......z.#.....
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 10 3a 07 00 df 72 00 00 ..6......:...r..
00 00 00 00 00 b0 2c 5a 01 00 00 00 33 07 00 00 ......,Z....3...

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

After the chkdsk completed I had to press a key on the keyboard for it to finish booting up to the copyright screen and then on to the welcome screen.

[gerryf]

Hmm, none of those account for the problem...OK, let's do this

right click MY COMPUTER, choose PROPERTIES, choose ADVANCED tab, click the SETTINGS button in STARTUP AND RECOVERY.

Click the EDIT button

You will see a line that looks like this:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

make it look like this

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /sos

in other words, add SPACE/SOS

TOUCH NOTHING ELSE.

Reboot.

This will clear the Splash Screen with the copyright message.

You should be able to see where it is hanging.

First you will see a boat load of something.sys files
I think one of these may be hanging.

Then you will see the kernal lode...this will take longer. Wait atleast a minute before doing anything

Then you will see a message about whether the disk is clean or dirty...should read clean...if not, note what it says.

Don't hit any key until it hangs

Relate any info back.

[amazed]

Did that, it says the Volume is clean, Disc is clean.

Before I changed this to read as you noted, this is what it actually said:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I wasn't sure if the ' /noexecute=optin' should have been in there but I put it back like it was just in case.

I noticed this last time that when it hangs up, the floppy drive light stays on while hanging. When I press a key it goes off and then boots up ok.

When I put this together last week, the floppy drive light stayed on at the first boot up. So I reversed the way the IDE cable hooked up to it. It looked like it was on correct but I turned it around anyway to see if that changed anything. It did, the floppy light went off and it booted up ok...most of the time anyway.
If the floppy IDE cable was on backwards it wouldn't work, right??

[gerryf]

Yes, and in many, many cases, you damage the floppy drive....this creates an entirerly different scenario....pretty important info you left out

What is the make model of your motherboard

[amazed]

Motherboard:

Asus, A7N8X-X

When I assembled this machine I used a floppy drive from another. It was noisy and I thought perhaps it was the boot up problem so I purchased another and installed it. Not noisy but the boot up problem did not go away. With my limited experience I guessed that the floppy thing wasn't important. Sorry 'bout that.

[gerryf]

reboot, hit DEL when you see the memory counting up.

This will bring you to BIOS.

On the Main screen, look for LEGACY DISKETTE A:

Set it to NONE

Hit f10, and say yes to save. This will ensure the motherboard does not look or check for the floppy at start up.

Reboot. Does the problem recur?

[amazed]

After that I rebooted twice. The first time it did not hang up. The second time it did, I had to press a key to make it continue the boot sequence.

Puzzled still...I appreciate your help!

[gerryf]

did the floppy drive light come on?

Try disconnecting the floppy drive power or data cable.

Also, backing up several steps....at one point does the pause occur (if you can tell) during the boot. When you had boot.ini setup like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /sos

[amazed]

No, the floppy drive light did not come on.

I disconnected the IDE and power cable to the floppy drive, still have the same problem.

I physically uninstalled the floppy drive, from the case, to be sure and it still has the pause to finish the reboot only to continue when I press a key on the keyboard.

I restored my boot.ini back to the original setting via system restore earlier today.

Either way on the boot.ini, the pause still occurs.

[gerryf]

rebooting again, and hitting DEL to enter bios.

On the MAIN Page , you see a setting called

HALT ON

What follows that? All errors, keyboard, etc?

Change it to NO ERRORS...

does the problem recur?

[amazed]

Did that, it still occurs.