[Peezy]

Here's the deal:

I had a computer about 6 months ago, it was kinda old, and one day, Windows wouldn't load. It would come up with this black screen that gave me a message saying "Sorry for the inconvenience, but Windows could not be loaded properly, yada yada yada" and it gave me these choices to start Windows:

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Start with Last Known Working Configuration
Start Windows Normally

The ONLY option, out of any of those that worked, is starting in normal Safe Mode. Networking or Command Prompt won't work either.

Well, I took that old computer to the Best Buy Geek Squad and they had it for a week, ran a ton of tests, finally gave it back to me and they flat out told me: "Umm, we dunno what to tell ya. Sorry."

So at this point, it was an old computer and I needed a new one anyway, so I bought a new one. Brand new HP from Best Buy, with Windows XP.

I've had it for about 6 months now...and it's doing the same thing. I turned it on Saturday and it has the exact same message and all I can do is run Safe Mode. I've started it in Safe Mode and I've run all my virus programs (Ad-Aware, Spybot, AVG, Microsoft Antispyware, etc.) and they've all come up clean.

I have no clue what to do. Even the Best Buy Geek Squad was at a loss as to what it could be and I'm at a friend's right now because I can't get my computer working. Any help would be muchos appreciated.

Since it's happened on both computers, including a relatively brand new one, I'm assuming that it's obviously something I'm running that is causing this to happen, but I'm strict about the stuff I download to my computer, so I have no clue what it could be that has slipped past me. I usually pride myself on being really careful about this kinda thing.

I posted about this on a forum I frequent and a guy I know there is pretty good with this kinda stuff, he told me to run Start > Run > dxdiag and send him the report (which I burned to a CD, took to a friend's house, and emailed to him) and he said it looked like I had a bunch of dead drivers but then he called me on the phone and started talking in a bunch of technical greek that I didn't understand. I'm a simple man, I like the small pleasures in life. Too much techno-talk makes smoke come out of my ears.

I just want my computer to work without having to format

Good laaaaaaawd, someone please help me!

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To perform a clean boot in Windows XP

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to follow these steps.

If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from follow these steps.

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then clear the Process System.ini File, Process WIn.ini File, and Load Startup Items check boxes. You cannot clear the Use Original Boot.ini check box.

3. On the Services tab, select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.

4. Click OK, and then click Restart to restart your computer.

5. After Windows starts, determine whether the symptoms still occur.

Look closely at the General tab to make sure that the check boxes that you cleared are still cleared.

Continue to step 6 if none of the check boxes are selected.

If the Load System Services check box is the only disabled check box, your computer is not clean-booted.

If additional check boxes are disabled and the issue is not resolved, you may require help from the manufacturer of the program that places a check mark back in Msconfig.

If none of the check boxes are selected, and the issue is not resolved, you may have to repeat steps 1 through 5, but you may also have to clear the Load System Services check box on the General tab.

This temporarily disables Microsoft services (such as, Networking, Plug and Play, Event Logging, and Error Reporting) and permanently deletes all restore points for the System Restore utility.

Do not do this if you want to retain your restore points for System Restore or if you must use a Microsoft service to test the issue.

6. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

7. On the General tab, select the Process System.ini File check box, click OK, and then click Restart to restart the computer. If the issue continues, the issue is with an entry in your System.ini file.

If the issue does not continue, repeat this step for the Process Win.ini File, Load Startup Items, and Load System Services check boxes until the issue occurs.

After the issue occurs, the last item that you selected is the item where the issue is occurring.

Microsoft strongly recommends that you do not use System Configuration Utility to modify the Boot.ini file on your computer without the direction of a Microsoft support engineer.

Doing so may make your computer unusable.

The Windows Installer service does not start if you disable Load System Services.

To use Windows Installer in this case, you must start the service manually:

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.

2. In the left pane, click Services and Applications, and then click Services.

3. In the right pane, right-click Windows Installer, and then click Start.

If you run a Setup program without manually starting the Windows Installer, you may receive the following error message:

The Windows Installer service could not be accessed. Contact your support personnel to verify that the windows Installer service is properly registered.

To return from a clean boot state

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services.

3. Click OK, and then click Restart when you are prompted to restart your computer.

Troubleshoot XP Start Up Errors

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Windows XP Professional for Itanium-based systems

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional

[Retired Tech]

To perform a clean boot in Windows XP

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to follow these steps.

If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from follow these steps.

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then clear the Process System.ini File, Process WIn.ini File, and Load Startup Items check boxes. You cannot clear the Use Original Boot.ini check box.

3. On the Services tab, select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.

4. Click OK, and then click Restart to restart your computer.

5. After Windows starts, determine whether the symptoms still occur.

Look closely at the General tab to make sure that the check boxes that you cleared are still cleared.

Continue to step 6 if none of the check boxes are selected.

If the Load System Services check box is the only disabled check box, your computer is not clean-booted.

If additional check boxes are disabled and the issue is not resolved, you may require help from the manufacturer of the program that places a check mark back in Msconfig.

If none of the check boxes are selected, and the issue is not resolved, you may have to repeat steps 1 through 5, but you may also have to clear the Load System Services check box on the General tab.

This temporarily disables Microsoft services (such as, Networking, Plug and Play, Event Logging, and Error Reporting) and permanently deletes all restore points for the System Restore utility.

Do not do this if you want to retain your restore points for System Restore or if you must use a Microsoft service to test the issue.

6. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

7. On the General tab, select the Process System.ini File check box, click OK, and then click Restart to restart the computer. If the issue continues, the issue is with an entry in your System.ini file.

If the issue does not continue, repeat this step for the Process Win.ini File, Load Startup Items, and Load System Services check boxes until the issue occurs.

After the issue occurs, the last item that you selected is the item where the issue is occurring.

Microsoft strongly recommends that you do not use System Configuration Utility to modify the Boot.ini file on your computer without the direction of a Microsoft support engineer.

Doing so may make your computer unusable.

The Windows Installer service does not start if you disable Load System Services.

To use Windows Installer in this case, you must start the service manually:

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.

2. In the left pane, click Services and Applications, and then click Services.

3. In the right pane, right-click Windows Installer, and then click Start.

If you run a Setup program without manually starting the Windows Installer, you may receive the following error message:

The Windows Installer service could not be accessed. Contact your support personnel to verify that the windows Installer service is properly registered.

To return from a clean boot state

1. Click Start, click Run, type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services.

3. Click OK, and then click Restart when you are prompted to restart your computer.

Troubleshoot XP Start Up Errors

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Windows XP Professional for Itanium-based systems

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional

[Peezy]

I tried everything you posted and none of it worked. I very much appreciate your effort though.

So yesterday, I sucked it up, and backed up everything I wanted to keep on a 2nd hard drive (I have 2 HD's in my computer...the C:\ that came with it and a Media hard drive, for music, videos, things of that nature). I backed it all up...and then formatted the C:\ drive.

I got done, restarted the computer, went thru all the steps like I just bought the thing, and then....about 5 minutes later, it freezes up and when I restart it, the EXACT SAME THING happened.

Reformatting my computer didn't even fix the problem.

Is it probably time for me to take this somewhere and get it looked at professionally?

[Retired Tech]

Try Memtest

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Then

Click start then run, type chkdsk /f /r then press enter, type Y to confirm for next boot, press enter then reboot.

This will take an hour, it will appear to load normally then either the monitor will show progress or the screen will go blank, do not disturb this.

Click start then run, type sfc /scannow then press enter, you need the XP CD and get an onscreen blue progress bar, when the bar goes, reboot.

Click start, all programmes, accessories, system tools to run disc clean up, click more options then clean up restore points, click confirm, click OK. Then from system tools, run disc defragmenter.

Click start then run, type prefetch then press enter, click edit then select all, right click any file then click delete, confirm delete, then reboot

When it gets to the desktop, the system files and the hard drive will be as they should

Download and install Tune Up 2006 Trial

Run disc clean up then registry clean up then click optimize to run reg defrag, which needs a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to optimize the computer, select computer with an internet connection from the drop down menu, this also requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to accelerate downloads, select the speed just above your actual connection speed, this requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to run system advisor

If no change, the next thing to do would be a repair install, this will leave data and settings intact

XP Repair

If you are unable to run XP Repair

Alternate XP Repair

Use the last one, Windows Installation CD to repair the current installation, which uses a slightly different method


After running the repair it will be necessary to install all Windows Updates

Microsoft Update

Beyond this, it could be a hardware fault

[elco69]

If you haven't been able to solve your problem, try this:

1.Boot to your Windows XP cd (put it in the cd drive and reboot your computer, you may have to borrow a friends XP disc, because HP comes with restore discs)
2.press "r" for the repair
3.select your windows drive (you will see when prompted)
4.just press "enter" when prompted for the administrator password (HP default is blank)
5. type "chkdsk /r" then enter
6. then type "fixboot" then press enter (it will ask you if your are sure, type "y" then enter)
7. then type "fixmbr" then press enter (it will ask you if your are sure, type "y" then enter)
8. once finished type "exit" and press enter (removed the XP cd after it turns off)

This should solve your problem. I work for the company you brought it to, but I am one of the onsite guys. this works for me about 90% of the time. If this does not work, you should have your HD tested, if they haven't already.

Edited by elco69, 03 January 2006 - 01:32 AM.