[youngsir76]

Noob here,

Hope you guys can help me out. I have an older desktop Hp Pavillion a230n. Came home one day after a lightning storm and found the computer won't fully load to the windows desktop. I've reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the os using recovery discs provided by hp. Everything runs smoothly(windows loading from the bootscreen, fans run, and desktop appears) within about 30 seconds the monitor will show some sort of error and a blue screen pops up referencing the error. Its been a long time ago since i've tried to "correct" this problem and don't exactly remember the error reported. The computer will then just continue to restart (even if put in safe mode) and show critical error once the desktop window appears. I wanted to know if this is a motherboard failure or what could be the cause of it since everything pretty much loads up just fine.

If you need to know the specific error i can try and fire up the old computer.

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The specific error would be nice and also some spec on your computer.H-P says you should have XP on the computer. If you start hitting the F8 key when the computer is booting up you should be able to get into safemode. Does the computer keep restarting there in safemode? If it does not keep restarting it is usually a driver causing the problem.

You can also try this.

During the rebooting process, repeatedly press the F8 key to enter Windows Advance Options Menu.
Use the up and down arrow keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked) and then press the Enter key.

If neither one of the above works try scandisk.
Run ScanDisk in Safe Mode or from a command prompt

Open ScanDisk in Windows Safe Mode to prevent software tasks from opening while still remaining in a Windows environment. For best results, open ScanDisk from a command prompt.
Safe Mode

1. Click Start , Shut Down , Restart , and OK .
2. At the first screen, press the F8 key repeatedly until the Startup Menu or Startup Options screen opens.
3. Select Safe Mode and then press Enter .
Windows eventually opens with Safe Mode displayed in the corners of the desktop.
4. Run ScanDisk again from Safe Mode.

Command prompt

1. Start the PC with a Windows Startup disk. For more information on how to create a startup disk, use the
support article How to Create a Startup Disk in Windows 98, and Me .
2. From the Startup menu, select the option to start without CD-ROM support.
3. Type scandisk at the C:\ prompt and press Enter . ScanDisk should finish unless there are serious problems on the drive being scanned.

If scandisk does not help you will need to do a repair install with a XP CD.

http://h10025.www1.h...n...1978&dlc=en

or if you do not have a HP recovery disk

http://www.michaelst...pairinstall.htm

SRX660

[SRX660]

The specific error would be nice and also some spec on your computer.H-P says you should have XP on the computer. If you start hitting the F8 key when the computer is booting up you should be able to get into safemode. Does the computer keep restarting there in safemode? If it does not keep restarting it is usually a driver causing the problem.

You can also try this.

During the rebooting process, repeatedly press the F8 key to enter Windows Advance Options Menu.
Use the up and down arrow keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked) and then press the Enter key.

If neither one of the above works try scandisk.
Run ScanDisk in Safe Mode or from a command prompt

Open ScanDisk in Windows Safe Mode to prevent software tasks from opening while still remaining in a Windows environment. For best results, open ScanDisk from a command prompt.
Safe Mode

1. Click Start , Shut Down , Restart , and OK .
2. At the first screen, press the F8 key repeatedly until the Startup Menu or Startup Options screen opens.
3. Select Safe Mode and then press Enter .
Windows eventually opens with Safe Mode displayed in the corners of the desktop.
4. Run ScanDisk again from Safe Mode.

Command prompt

1. Start the PC with a Windows Startup disk. For more information on how to create a startup disk, use the
support article How to Create a Startup Disk in Windows 98, and Me .
2. From the Startup menu, select the option to start without CD-ROM support.
3. Type scandisk at the C:\ prompt and press Enter . ScanDisk should finish unless there are serious problems on the drive being scanned.

If scandisk does not help you will need to do a repair install with a XP CD.

http://h10025.www1.h...n...1978&dlc=en

or if you do not have a HP recovery disk

http://www.michaelst...pairinstall.htm

SRX660

[youngsir76]

Thanks very much for your help SRX. My computer stats: Hp Pavillion a230n , 1gb ram, , AMD Athlon XP 2800+2.08 GHz Barton, 120gb hard drive ultra dma @5400rpm(XP) .... I installed two 512 mb ram sticks a few years ago which have functioned just fine for over a year. The exact specs for my comp. can be found here. http://h10025.www1.h...reg_R1002_USEN

I attempted to replicate the error yesterday to no avail. But I found some old notes i jotted down about some of the error message i had recieved in the past. Back then I tried running safe mode where each file loads in command prompt seperately. The last file to attempt to load for me was agp.sys and then it says windows could not start because the following file is missing/corrupt. Another error i recieved was a stop hex dump with hexadecimal characters and "win\system32\config\system and in yet another instance the error was for win32k.sys.


However, it seems that things have taken a turn for the worst. I attempted to just use the original OS discs to reinstall. About midway through reading disc 3 the computer encountered a blue screen with an error stating that the system shut down to prevent serious errors.

Now the recovery partition is incomplete. I've attempted to go into the system recovery (F10) but i get the error System Recovery environment is incomplete! System recovery reinstalls the environment. It then prompts me to insert disc 3 and it picks up from there. After about 7 minutes I get an error message saying that The file C:\PRELOAD\BASE_17.INP cannot be recovered! I retried several times to no avail. If i try to let the computer start up like normal it says NTLDR is missing. I've also tried just starting from disc 1 but it stops at disc 3. The NTLDR error prevents me from entering safe mode.

I looked at a few other similar problems to mine that I found across the forum; one mentioned just wiping the hard drive clean by using a duke and nuke sort of program. It also mentioned that some hard drives are locked and will always retain certain data unless a duke and nuke is performed.

Should I attempt a duke and nuke on the desktop? (in order for me to perform this I'd have to use my laptop or borrow a friends desktop}
Soure DukeNukem

Thanks again for all your help!

[youngsir76]

:idea:

Edited by youngsir76, 14 August 2008 - 01:59 AM.

[youngsir76]

,

Edited by youngsir76, 14 August 2008 - 01:57 AM.

[SRX660]

I really don't think you need to boot and nuke your drive. Since you're Restore CD's have been corrupted you will probably need to buy a Windows XP CD so you can reinstall XP to your drive.

You should read this article on a fresh XP install by Lifehacker. It is very good information.

http://lifehacker.co...atch-157578.php

When you are installing XP to the drive again You may see 2 partitions just like the lifehacker screen shows. This second partition is the restore partition that H-P , Compaq, Dell, and other factory computer put on the drive so they do not need a XP CD included with the computer. Beg or borrow any XP CD to use to reinstall since you should have a sticker on the computer with the registration Numbers set on it. It looks similar to this.



You can combine the 2 partitions into one large partition with the XP CD.

http://www.theelderg...using_xp_cd.htm

If you have any problems even trying to format the hard drive i would suspect that the hard drive is going bad. Unfortunately the problem with your computer is it is way too old to really put any money into. A new H-P can be bought for around $400 that will blow away your computer now. I just stripped out my old Athlon XP Barton 2600 computer to sell to CPU to someone who burned their CPU out. I had been using it for a Linux computer to experiment with the last couple of years. Just the cost of a new HD and a XP CD will be around $150 or more. You will have to decide if it is worth it.

SRX660