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XP won't boot


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#16
jsaklas

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123 Runner,

I'm at the office today, but tonight and tomorrow I will at home.

No, I still can't get into Safe Mode. When I try, after a few seconds, I get a listing of many drivers, i.e. the screen lists look like:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\...--then a driver

It lists about 20+ drivers.

After a few seconds, the screen becomes black with the words Safe Mode in each corner and at the center top: BUILD .xpsp_sp2 (and more but I could not write fast enought to copy it all down).

Then the machine again shuts down and restarts.

J
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#17
123Runner

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After a few seconds, the screen becomes black with the words Safe Mode in each corner and at the center top: BUILD .xpsp_sp2

. This is the safe mode.
Do you have time before it restarts to get to cmd and type in the sfc command?
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#18
jsaklas

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123...

I can try. Remind me once I get to that black screen how do I get to the cmd prompt?
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#19
diabillic

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Try booting to Safe Mode with Command prompt to start the sfc /scannow.

If that doesnt work, a repair install would be my next course of action.
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#20
123Runner

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Try booting to Safe Mode with Command prompt to start the sfc /scannow.

Forgot about that one. easiest and quickest.

Thanks diabillic.
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#21
jsaklas

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Fellas,

You're confusing me. I can't get into Safe Mode on the Original XP except for a few seconds. From the new XP I can, of course, do so; can I run sfc from the new XP?

If not, and I must run sfc from the original XP, how do get a cmd prompt when I only have a few seconds before it shuts me down?

J.

Edited by jsaklas, 30 June 2009 - 04:58 PM.

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#22
123Runner

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Just to clarify on the safe mode.
Are you even getting to the part where you can log in as administrator?
I suspect not because you are saying you get only a few seconds.
If you do get to log in, you will go immediately to a command prompt where you can type in "sfc /scannow" without quotes.


Your only choices that I can see at this point are a
1. Repair install and
2. Moving the data, etc to the new windows and reinstalling your programs.

then deleting the "old" windows and editing the boot.ini file so there is only 1 XP to boot.
I will keep thinking on these for more options.
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#23
jsaklas

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I had this machine set up so that all are administrators. No one logs in.

Regardless, when I attempt to boot up in safe mode on the original damaged XP, as I said before:

"When I try, after a few seconds, I get a listing of many drivers, i.e. the screen lists look like:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\...

It lists about 20+ drivers.

After a few seconds, the screen becomes black with the words Safe Mode in each corner and at the center top: BUILD .xpsp_sp2 (and more but I could not write fast enought to copy it all down). It is a black screen, it is not a typical windows screen. The "Flying Window" page never comes up.

Then after only a second or two, the machine again shuts down and restarts. I try hitting various keys, I try Alt-Ctl-Del etc, and nothing stops it from shutting down.

Does this help?
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#24
Reactor

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Hm. Looks like y'got a serious problem there, friend. It's just a random thought, but if your problems have started during the virus scan process, you MIGHT have somethin' unwanted on your computer. It matters not, since y'absolutely cannot access your hard drive.

My advice would work, if y'got a good friend, who also owns a machine. Grab a screwdriver, and take your hard drive to him. Connect it to his PC, and tell him to run some scan on it. Since it'll be a "passive" hard disk at that time, no matter what y'got there, it shall not interfere with your friend's "active" hard drive. Y'got the point,right? So my advice would be to visit a friend, and ask him to check your hard drive for possible errors. His chkdsk will run perfectly.

Found everythin' fine...ahem...there is a very high chance of two Anti-virus softwares interfering each other, and therefore knockin' out your hard drive. I suggest an imminent removal of one of them (uninstall AND registry clean-out).

If everythin' else fails, ask your friend to write DVDs or give some space for a couple o'hours, and do a complete format C. This always does the trick.

However, if the problem STILL exists (which is very unlikely), or your friend's PC cannot detect your hard drive, then your hard disk might have a flaw. Sort of a hardware error, y'know. In this case, nothin' helps, but buying a new hard drive. There is a VERY minor chance for a hardware failure, yet, it might happen (at least it happened to me once).

One of these solutions might work for ya. It's time-consuming alright, still, it's better than losin' all your precious data, isn't it?
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#25
jsaklas

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Reactor,

I am still confused and I will play the "devil's advocate." If my hard drive had a problem, how is it that my "New" XP appears to be working perfectly OK? Also, (although I haven't tried them all) it appears that I can access all my folders.

Moreover when I ran chkdsk (from my New XP) it didn't seem to find a problem. Is there another downloadable software that I could run from the new XP that would check to see if there is a problem on the hard drive?
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#26
rshaffer61

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I'm confused...
Are you saying you can boot into the New Xp and the system does not shut down or reboot on it's own?
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#27
123Runner

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Ok everyone. I think I need to sum this up because the newcomers are not reading the posts and information supplied.

1. Two antivirus scanners running (and he only has 1 active) will only cause false positives. They will not keep the OS from booting.
2. The Op has installed another XP os on the same hard drive and it is booting and operating fine.
3. A check disk was run on the drive and even though I believe it found some errors, it did not resolve the booting problem.
4. A hard disk failure (or eminent failure)would also be creating issues with his "new" OS.
5. The Op can not get into safe mode long enough to run a sfc /scannow on the system file. Because it reboots prior to loading all the way.
6. The problem is not heat related because the "new" windows runs fine.
7. The computer rebooted during his scan could be that there was a power surge which caused it to reboot. We will never know.

I am suspecting a possible virus taking out the boot cfg or boot.ini (or similar).
There could be a corrupted driver in the old OS, but I doubt that because the new OS would be using the same drivers. Also safe mode loads basic drivers and it does not work either.

jsaklas, If you want to run Western digitals drive diagnostics to eliminate a drive failure, we can do that. At Western Digital Diagnostics you would want to use the 5th one down for bootable floppy and the 6th one for bootable CD. For the CD it would create an iso file. You can then use Burncdcc from my signature to burn it to the CD. It is a no frills program. Quick and dirty.

I am also tempted on sending you to the Malware Forum to see if they can find any virus on the computer. You can start with Malware and Cleaning Guide

jsaklas... Do not due a complete format of the entire drive till we either resolve this or get your data. Also...NEVER run a registry cleaner as was once suggested.

Welcome to the party Rshaffer61. I could use your help/thoughts on this.

123runner

EDIT: Since we can not get into safe mode, a system restore can not be done, nor can we stop the "restart" so we can get a blue screen and the stop codes.

Edited by 123Runner, 30 June 2009 - 08:49 PM.

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#28
jsaklas

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RShaffer61,

Yes, I can boot the New XP without any problems. All the MS software: IE, etc. that comes within XP all work fine. All software that are not integrated with the OS (an old Excel 4.0, and old DOS Norton Commander, some FORTRAN programs I've written, etc.) all work perfectly well, etc. I've loaded up my printer, an HP 4 Plus, etc.

For some reason, my Firefox also works perfectly well, and that is how I'm writing this post.

[This was written before 123's last posting.]

Edited by jsaklas, 30 June 2009 - 08:56 PM.

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#29
jsaklas

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123...,

I must apologize again, I have trouble understanding some of your terms plus I'm 62 so a few more things slip paste me than used to do so:

you would want to use the 5th one down for bootable floppy and the 6th one for bootable CD. For the CD it would create an iso file. You can then use Burncdcc from my signature to burn it to the CD.


What does this mean? Does it mean that I must download this program to a bootable floppy or a bootable CD. Why can't I download it to my hard drive? IF not, how do I get a bootable floppy. [I may have one for Windows 95 - but I don't think that would work, would it?]

I've used some on line malware removers and am more than willing to go that route if the preponderance of evidence is that I have a virus.

Lastly I like having multiple anti spyware, adware, and virus software. I have found that each one catches items the other misses. I only keep one active and I thought that would eliminate the "working against each other" problem. Maybe something runs in the background that I didn't know about.

Thanks for everything. I'm staying here until midnight, EDT, if you are all signing off, let me know and perhaps we can connect in the morning. I don't work tomorrow, so I will be here.

J.

Edited by jsaklas, 30 June 2009 - 09:12 PM.

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#30
rshaffer61

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So if the new xp is working fine then the option I see is to elminate the need to chose between the two installations.
This can be done by editing the boot.ini file.
The problem may be if they are not named slightly different it will be hard to determine which is the new one and which is the old one.
To me it sounds like you did a parallel install of XP and thats why the new one works. Something loading in windows in the old one is causing the problem.
I would like to take a look at your boot.ini file to just check it for you. Please follow the next steps for me. Also you will need to boot into the New Xp to do this.


Please do the following in the exact steps. Failure to do so could make the boot.ini damaged and cause unstable or unusable results with your system.:

Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini

1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl and then click OK.
2. Click on the Advanced tab, and then click Settings
3. In the Startup and Recovery area at the bottom click Settings.
4. Under System Startup click Edit. This opens the Boot.ini file in Notepad ready for editing.
5. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
6. First in here change the location in the top white drop down box to Desktop. Then in the file name change to Boot.old and save as Text Document(*.txt) and save it to your Desktop and then click Save



Please copy and paste all the lines from your Boot.ini file in your next reply.
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