[butterrice]

I have Windows XP which was working fine yesterday. But today it gets past the Windows Logo that shows it's booting, then freezes on the black screen. There is no blinking cursor or error message. I tried to boot in Safe mode, and it freeszes on the screen that details what it loads. There is no blue screen or flash of blue screen.

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Try running chkdsk from the Recovery Console. You are going to have to get into BIOS Setup on your computer to set the CD/DVD drive as the first bootable device, so you can then boot your XP CD, unless it provides the ability to press a Fn key at boot time to bring up the boot selection menu. If it does, use that.

How you do this varies with each manufacturer. Normally you press F1, F2, F10 or Del when you see the manufacturers logo. Often there is a clue somewhere on the screen when you boot normally telling you what key to press. Some computers (most newer ones) have a key you can press (often F12) to bring up the Boot Menu from where you can select the CD/DVD drive to boot from.

If you don't have an XP CD, download and run ARCDC by Artellos. It will download the required files from the Microsoft Web site and create a .iso file. It will also offer to burn the iso image to a CD for you. If you don't do it then, there is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do it at a later time. If you're unsure how to do this, you can follow the tutorial here: How to Burn an ISO File. This can be done from any computer.
Boot the CD and at the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console.

Next, choose which XP installation you want to login to. Normally this will be 1.
Lastly you will be asked for the Administrator password. Just press the Enter key as the Administrator does not have a password (unless you gave it one, then you would enter it).

From the command prompt, type: chkdsk /r and press Enter.
Allow it to complete undisturbed. It can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive.

Remove the CD, type exit and the computer will reboot. Hopefully that will have fixed the problem (corrupted file system).

If that doesn't help then check your RAM and hard drive.

Download Memtest86+ (you want the 2nd one Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)). Unzip it then create a CD from the iso file using your CD burning software. There is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do this easily.

DO NOT burn the .iso file directly to CD. It must be used as input to a program that knows what to do with it, like the one I mentioned above.

Boot the CD and run for at least 3 complete passes unless it shows errors sooner than that. An overnight run is even better.

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics

[Ztruker]

Try running chkdsk from the Recovery Console. You are going to have to get into BIOS Setup on your computer to set the CD/DVD drive as the first bootable device, so you can then boot your XP CD, unless it provides the ability to press a Fn key at boot time to bring up the boot selection menu. If it does, use that.

How you do this varies with each manufacturer. Normally you press F1, F2, F10 or Del when you see the manufacturers logo. Often there is a clue somewhere on the screen when you boot normally telling you what key to press. Some computers (most newer ones) have a key you can press (often F12) to bring up the Boot Menu from where you can select the CD/DVD drive to boot from.

If you don't have an XP CD, download and run ARCDC by Artellos. It will download the required files from the Microsoft Web site and create a .iso file. It will also offer to burn the iso image to a CD for you. If you don't do it then, there is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do it at a later time. If you're unsure how to do this, you can follow the tutorial here: How to Burn an ISO File. This can be done from any computer.
Boot the CD and at the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console.

Next, choose which XP installation you want to login to. Normally this will be 1.
Lastly you will be asked for the Administrator password. Just press the Enter key as the Administrator does not have a password (unless you gave it one, then you would enter it).

From the command prompt, type: chkdsk /r and press Enter.
Allow it to complete undisturbed. It can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive.

Remove the CD, type exit and the computer will reboot. Hopefully that will have fixed the problem (corrupted file system).

If that doesn't help then check your RAM and hard drive.

Download Memtest86+ (you want the 2nd one Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)). Unzip it then create a CD from the iso file using your CD burning software. There is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do this easily.

DO NOT burn the .iso file directly to CD. It must be used as input to a program that knows what to do with it, like the one I mentioned above.

Boot the CD and run for at least 3 complete passes unless it shows errors sooner than that. An overnight run is even better.

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics

[butterrice]

Ok I ran the ARCDC. It didn't help. But. Let me add this, after the Windows Icon boots up and goes to the black screen, I can hear something pop up, like when it's loading up. I don't think it's the screen, because I can see Toshiba Icon and Microsoft. I haven't downloaded the drive test yet, I plan to do it tomorrow unless you tell me something different. I almost think it's virus or something.

[Ztruker]

Boot to the Advanced Boot Options Menu again (F8 at boot time) and select Last know configuration that worked. See if that helps.


Did you run chkdsk as I mentioned previously?

[butterrice]

Ok.... I selected Last known Configuration and now it just keeps rebooting. I did run the chkdsk as you suggested and the report said that it fixed all errors.Now, I have a brand new Windows XP. Could I just reinstall?

I also officially have the blue screen that suggests something is wrong on start up.

Edited by butterrice, 04 November 2012 - 06:57 PM.

[Ztruker]

Do you have your data backed up? If not you need to do that before doing anything else.

Once that's done, try a Repair Install, see if that fixes the problem. You can always do a full (Clean) install later if necessary.

[butterrice]

Okay - I have put a new operating system on this laptop. That seems to have fixed the issue. Whatever it was. Thank you for your help!

[Ztruker]

Great, glad to hear it.