Had a power outage last night, when it came back got a screen telling me Windows didn’t shut down properly and asked if I wanted to start normally, with the last known configuration, or in safe mode. I tried all of them and none worked. I would see the Windows logo and hear the disk spinning for a couple of seconds and then it would go back to the message. Tried F10 to go into recovery mode, tried putting in the HP recovery disk I made, nothing happens.
I thought about getting to a friend’s computer and making a boot disk, could that help?
It goes back to that message? Without rebooting? That sounds pretty messed up. Any more details you can give as to exactly what happens when you select one of the menu choices?
For recovery operations, I recommend making a BartPE disc.
My guess would be that when the power went, it fried one of your components, and the boot sequence is bombing when it hits that component. If it were mine, the first thing I would do is disconnect all non-essential components (including keyboard, mouse, etc). If it boots then you’ve found the problem. If not, then you may have to start disconnecting/bypassing essential components (such as using a boot disk to bypass the hard drive).
Once I had an internal modem get fried by a lightning strike… the computer would do absolutely nothing at all, not even power on the fans, but when I removed the internal modem, it acted as if nothing had happened.
What exactly happens? Do you get a BSOD and then a reboot? If so, you should try to disable the reboot so you can see exactly what it says on the blue screen. Quite often it will be INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE, whereon you should fire up your restore disk, drop to a command prompt, and run CHKDSK. Do note that if you’ve set up some sort of software RAID, then you’ll needto provide the driver anew.
Another thing you can try is there’s an option on startup to list all the device drivers Windows is loading. Select that and see where it fails. If the last one you see is AGP440.sys then it’s failing after loading all the drivers. You may find that it’s failing on a driver with an obvious name, in which case you may have found your problem.
Having done that, you should be able to load a System Restore Point.
Well I can’t make a Bart CD, my computer didn’t even come with a Windows CD. I made a recovery disk following HP’s instructions. And I can’t make one here at my brother’s because he has Vista.
Here is exactly what happens. I get a black screen with white letters, I have the option to boot normally, with the last known good configuration, and in safe mode with a command prompt or without. I use the arrow keys to select one, and press enter. The Windows logo comes up for a second, the disk starts spinning, then I hear it stop. Then it goes back to that black screen.
The disk starting and then stopping after a couple of seconds happened a couple of times in the past, I was able to “fix” it by unplugging the power cord and then rebooting, that may or may not have anything to do with what is happening now.
I read elsewhere that it may be a problem with the power supply, maybe that’s why I had problems in the past.
I don’t think anything is fried, the keyboard and mouse works.
By pressing F10 I go into HP recovery, but then I get some message about something not being found, some file or something I can’t remember. I think this is trying to access the built in recovery program. I’ve also tried inserting the Recovery disk I created but I can’t access it.
Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate
System error: Lsass.exe
This is an error that crops up sometimes when you lose power and windows ends without being able to shut down properly. Fortunately, it’s usually recoverable, but the recovery is much easier to do if you can temporarily mount the drive in another system.
for the official Microsoft solution to this problem. It does work, but you have to follow it very carefully.
For another solution, I copied this message by another doper (I’m sorry I neglected to note the name, whoever it is, THANKS!) and have used these instructions a half dozen times (most recently last week) to recover from the same errors.
Ya know, it’s much easier to debug an issue like this if we have all the information. Reboot your computer with the HP recovery program and write down the file that’s missing.