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PC start-up stalling at Windows XP screen.


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#1
Simon_H

Simon_H

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Hello everyone,

I'm unfortunately having a big problem with my computer, one that has happened all of a sudden. Just a few days ago, I switched the computer on as usual and after a few seconds it reached the black Windows XP screen with the little 'loading' bar at the bottom. Of course normally it would almost immediately go past this to the blue 'welcome' screen before allowing me to type my log-in password and access my user account. But for some reason now it just stays frozen on the Windows XP screen with the little bar scrolling across at the bottom. It would stay on that screen all day if I let it.

I pressed the reset button and that brought up the black screen with text about how Windows had not started up properly, with several options on how to proceed. I chose 'Start using last known good settings' but unfortunately the computer once again got stuck on the Windows XP screen. Luckily I can use the computer in 'Safe mode with networking' allowing me to access my files and use the internet, but obviously a lot of the computer's functionality is disabled in Safe Mode.

I'm just wondering if anyone can shed any light on why this problem has occurred. I don't think I had installed anything or changed the system in any way immediately prior to having this problem. If anyone can offer me any advice or help me out at all I would be hugely grateful.

Thanks!

Simon.
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#2
Dwight

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Hi Simon H, Welcome to G2G. give this a try.
SYSTEM RESTORE from safe mode
See if you can get in safe mode,try this
1. Restart your computer, and keep tapping F8 during the initial start-up
until you get options, select Safe Mode with a command prompt then press enter.

2. Log on to your computer with an administrator account or with an account that
has administrator credentials.

3. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to an earlier state.

Look for the most recent system checkpoint created before the errors to restore
From....
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#3
Simon_H

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Hi Dwight,

Thanks a lot for your help, and the welcome to the site. I tried the System Restore and restored my computer to 17th Feb which is well before these current problems started. Unfortunately when I tried start-up once more the process still stalled on the Windows XP screen.

Do you know of anything else I can try?

Thanks again,

Simon.
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#4
Major Payne

Major Payne

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Try booting from your CDROM.

You may have a corrupt boot.ini file (Boot.ini is a hidden system file in c: root directory. You must enable viewing hidden and system files. Also, if you want to edit boot.ini, you have to remove the read only attribute from the file.). See if this will help you even if you received no errors:

Invalid Boot.ini

Ron
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