[alpha3031]

My windows XP machine freezes soon after booting. I tried this with safe mode and without with the same outcome. How can I fix this?

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alpha3031

Couple of questions if I may;
Does the computer actually get to the Windows desktop and then freeze there.
Has the HDD been making any unusual noises or been working slowly leading up to this.
Do you have a Windows or a system restore disk for the computer.

Please provide information about your computer, this includes is it a notebook or desktop, is it a custom build or brand name such as Dell or HP, if it is provide the model name or series number (not serial) providing these details will enable us to better assist you.

[phillpower2]

alpha3031

Couple of questions if I may;
Does the computer actually get to the Windows desktop and then freeze there.
Has the HDD been making any unusual noises or been working slowly leading up to this.
Do you have a Windows or a system restore disk for the computer.

Please provide information about your computer, this includes is it a notebook or desktop, is it a custom build or brand name such as Dell or HP, if it is provide the model name or series number (not serial) providing these details will enable us to better assist you.

[alpha3031]

no if i start on safe mode it freezes on the choose boot option box when it shows all the drivers, for normal start up the computer goes as far as boot-time defrag (after showing the loading windows screen) but doesn't start booting on, for most recent settings that worked its the same except my defragging software doesn't start. i can pin point a few different things that i changed b4 this happened but i'm sure they weren't the cause. also the HDD didn't make any noise
info:
Dell latitude D630
intel centrino duo processer
winXP pro SP3 build (2063 i think)
hdd less than 100 Gb divided in to 2 partitions
ram approx 2Gb
and unfortunately no disk(i had sys restore on but no disk)

Edited by alpha3031, 25 March 2013 - 04:17 AM.

[phillpower2]

hdd less than 100 Gb divided in to 2 partitions

How big is the partition that has XP on it and how much free space was/is available on it, I ask this because you may have a corrupt/damaged OS.

and unfortunately no disk(i had sys restore on but no disk)

Does the HDD possibly have a recovery partition on it, try tapping/holding down the Ctrl and the F11 key when you next power up the computer.

Also worth checking is pressing the F12 key when you power up, this is to see if the Dell diagnostic tool is available.

[alpha3031]

i used the diagnostic tool: passed all tests
no luck with Ctrl+F11
there was about 40 gb in the sys partition
few gb of space left

Edited by alpha3031, 28 March 2013 - 11:50 PM.

[phillpower2]

there was about 40 gb in the sys partition
few gb of space left

This may explain your problem, you must always have between 15 and 20% of the overall storage capacity available as free space on a HDD/partition for Windows to copy files to and from, so on a 40GB partition you need between 6 and 8GB of free space continually available or the OS will become corrupt and in a worse case scenario the HDD can fail mechanically.

When you tried Safe Mode did you also try Last Known Good Configuration or was that what you meant by the following;

for most recent settings that worked its the same except my defragging software doesn't start

Can I ask what you mean by defragging software!

Do you have data on the HDD that you would like to try and secure.

When you tap F8 on powering up the computer do you see a Recovery Partition option.

Can you borrow an XP installation disk, it must be the same version as what you have or a higher version, ie if you have XP home you can use an XP Pro disk but not the other way around.

[alpha3031]

yes Last Known Good Configuration was what i meant by recent settings that worked
because i move my files frequently they end up very fragmented and windows defrag doesn't work well so i downloaded defrag software (iorbit SmartDefrag)it worked well before so there is no reason to think this cause the problem
no important data on the hdd
no recovery partition

[phillpower2]

i can pin point a few different things that i changed b4 this happened but i'm sure they weren't the cause.

Can you tell us about these exact changes please.

Can you borrow an XP installation disk, it must be the same version as what you have or a higher version, ie if you have XP home you can use an XP Pro disk but not the other way around.

Are you able to borrow a disk in case one is needed.

See if you are able to start in Safe Mode with Command Prompt;
If you can type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y

If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually.
On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.

When completed it will hopefully boot the system back into Windows and we can then look at either freeing up some space on the partition or possibly resizing it.

[alpha3031]

unable to start in any way
should be able to borrow xp disk

[phillpower2]

i can pin point a few different things that i changed b4 this happened but i'm sure they weren't the cause.

Can you tell us about these exact changes please.

Can you answer this please.

If you are able to borrow a disk please refer to the Repair Installation tutorial provided courtesy of admin @ http://www.geekstogo...air-windows-xp/

[alpha3031]

i restarted windows themes and installer and upgraded some software

[phillpower2]

Have you borrowed an XP disk and tried a Repair Installation.

[alpha3031]

not yet but thank you for ur help

[phillpower2]