[jayemm24]

I have an HP Media Center 2004 PC that has never had a problem booting. I installed the latest Ipod Updater and have had a problem booting ever since. What happens is that the screen stays black after the Windows splash screen is displayed. I can boot in safe mode, and if I do a combination of restoring to a previous restore point and using last known good config boot option it will boot (but the next time it has the problem again). I noticed in the event viewer that I am getting an "nview_info" error with the following text: "The following information is part of the event: NVIEW : Explorer: WAIT_TIMEOUT, while waiting for a read to clear - resetting read event". Any help that anyone could provide would be appreciated.

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disable the nvidia desktop manager

Start > run
msconfig
<enter>

Look under startup tab...reboot. Fix?

Sounds like the desktop manager is corrupt.

If that works, I would download the latest nvidia drivers for you machine, then uninstall the existing ones in safe mode. Reboot. Cancel all hardware wizards, then install the freshly downloaded ones.

[gerryf]

disable the nvidia desktop manager

Start > run
msconfig
<enter>

Look under startup tab...reboot. Fix?

Sounds like the desktop manager is corrupt.

If that works, I would download the latest nvidia drivers for you machine, then uninstall the existing ones in safe mode. Reboot. Cancel all hardware wizards, then install the freshly downloaded ones.

[jayemm24]

Thanks for the reply.

I disabled the nvidia desktop manager, which removed the nview errors in the event viewer, but I have the same problem booting (or not booting). It appears if I boot in safe mode, select a restore point, reboot again for the restore point which fails, select boot from last known configuration which usually boots into normal Windows (not safe mode). I have left my computer in Standby mode since. Anyway, I checked the event viewer for the last failed boots and only noticed the following errors:

The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
Fips
intelppm

DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the server:

The mrtRate service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified.


I was wondering if there is a more detailed boot log that would show where the boot process is hanging? Any help would be appreciated.

Edited by jayemm24, 23 January 2006 - 11:30 PM.

[gerryf]

Yes there is, but let's do this first

Start > run
cmd
<enter>

type
chkdsk /r
<enter>

Say yes to run on next reboot.

Reboot, go take a walk this will take some time.

[jayemm24]

Sorry for the delay in responding, I was unexpectedly out of town for the last week and when I got back it took me some time to get my PC booted.

I ran the chkdsk as recommended and it completed. However, it must perform another step after rebooting (some type of cleanup) and since my PC is having a reboot problem it would not get past this. This caused the chkdsk "dirty" flag not to be reset and chkdsk would run on every boot, even safe mode. Another problem was that I could not cancel chkdsk, even though it said to press any key to cancel (it would not recognize a key press). The only way I got around this was to restart in recovery mode and rename chkdsk.exe and autochk.exe so that they would not be found and run. I received such an error including that autochk was being skipped, which is how I got my PC to boot.

I am ready for the next step. As mentioned in my previous post (and before the chkdsk), I could get it to boot if I restored to a restore point, rebooted (which would not boot), turn PC off and start and select reboot from last known config. This has worked in the past. For some reason it appears that something was left in the startup from the ipodsetup (or that corrupted something else) that is causing the boot process to lock. Is there any type of boot logging that would show what was completed and what was in progress when the boot failed?

Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[The Skeptic]

Try to uninstall the IPod updater or the entire program. Download, install and run CCleaner. Run Cleaner and Issues. Run the program few times until all bad issues and files are removed. Try to restart.

[jayemm24]

Thanks for the reply. The ipodupdater that I believe caused the problem had already been uninstalled (this was the first thing I did when I was able to get the PC to boot after the problem started). I ran CCleaner and cleaned up the issues and other things that were found. Unfortunately, the problem still exists.

It is hanging right after the Windows XP spash screen (black background with the Windows XP logo in the middle) disappears. When the screen goes blank the hard drive light is on for about 10 seconds and then stops, and the screen stays blank. If I go through the process outlined above, I can usually get it to boot. I am leaving it in standby for now so that I can use it when needed, but am willing to try more suggestions.

Thanks again for any help.

[gerryf]

Can you remove this harddrive and insert it in another PC as a second drive, then run chkdsk on it there?

[The Skeptic]

My impression is that there is a corrupt windows file or driver acting at an early stage of booting. That is why the computer gets stuck early in normal boot but boots well in safe mode where the said file is not rquired. I think that I would do a windows repair installation at this stage. For this you need the original XP disk. You don't have to worry about your data, it will remain intact. However, you will have to download again all windows updates. Look for instructions at a pinned thread at the top of this forum.

[jayemm24]

Thanks for the replies. As for the chkdsk, I was able to run it using the recovery console. It completed and stated that it corrected some files, but it did not reset the chkdsk from running during the boot process. I was finally able to get it to bypass the startup chkdsk by renaming the files using the recovery console. After that and CCleaner I still had the boot issue.

Will the windows repair installation cause me to install all of my programs again? Also, I have an HP which has the XP image on a small partition on the hard drive (that is drive D:) and I do not have the CDs. I do not believe that I can make CDs from the XP image on the drive (I thought the recovery process knows to use drive D:). Can I perform the windows repair using this drive D:?

Thanks again.

[The Skeptic]

When you do repair installation with an original XP disk you loose nothing except windows updates which you have to download again.

As for HP, where I live the vast majority of the computers are not brand name, allowing for cheaper products with much wider variability. For this reason I am not too familiar with HP recovery. As far as I know it will bring the HD to it's original state, meaning it will wipe out everything added by the user after leaving the shop. Frankly, I would like you to have another opinion as I am not sure 100% about this HP issue.

[jayemm24]

I am just following up to see if anyone is familiar with performing a Windows repair installation on an HP that did not come with Windows XP CDs but rather has a recovery hard drive partition.

Also, is this my only option (I do not want to lose all configurations, app installs, etc. unless that is the only option since it would take some time rebuilding my PC - if Windows repair cannot save this info)? Is there any way to see how far the boot process got before hanging? I tried selecting the boot log using the F8 options but the ntbtlog was not updated.

Thanks in advance.

[jayemm24]

Here is an update to my situation. I once again did a system restore, which took a lot longer before rebooting (with the system restore in progress dialog displayed) than the other times I did this. Afterward, my PC rebooted fine and had done so for quite a number of times (which it had not done since my problem started). After a few days of working (with multiple reboots per day), the problem started happening again. I tried system restore and it did not take as long as it did the last time and my boot problem is still occurring. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

I read in this forum about sfc /scannow and I was wondering if that may help my situation? Any downsides to running it? I found my HP recovery DVDs that I made from the recovery partition, so I am guessing I could do a Windows repair if sfc did not work. Any downsides to running Windows Repair?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is very frustrating. Thanks in advance.

[The Skeptic]

Hi there.

I made a telephone call to HP support centre in my country and asked about your computer. Unfortunately your model is not sold here and they couldn't give definitive answers. Maybe you could call HP where you live and try to get an answer.

Regarding sfc /scannow, this is a procedure that repairs missing or corrupt system files. Shouldn't cause any harm. If you can perform it with your recovery disks give it a try.

Another program that I use regularly is Advanced System Optimizer. You can download it for 30 days trial period. If you download it run: System and Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner and Fixer, Registry Defraager and Optimizer. I doubt if it will help in your case but it's worthwhile trying.