My computer will not boot Windows XP. I get to a screen that says that Win didn’t load properly last time and gives options for starting (like safe mode). None work. The computer just freezes after a second of HD access after a choice.
“Typical,” I think to myself. I’ve been having HD crashes and have gotten used to the reloading routine, so I plugged in a spare HD and popped in the XP disk. It got to the “Setup is starting Windows” screen, and it sticks there. The HD is apparently not the problem.
I can start the computer with the WinXP DOS boot disk, but can’t check c: because it’s formatted in NPPT, or whatever that new format is called.
So, I’m guessing something’s wrong with the electronics. I’ve seen this before when messing with a 486 on which I shorted something on the video card (by dropping a screwdriver in it while it was running:eek: ), afer which I could still run DOS applications but not Windows.
I think the electronics are damaged somewhere, but don’t know if it’s the video card, processor, or motherboard. Any suggestions on which to replace first?
In my case, it was the video card, but the solution was to reinstall XP and tell the setup NOT to use the video drivers that the video card manufacturer provided.
Then, contact the video card builder to get the latest drivers.
The thing that confuses me is how you got that spare HD. does it have a backup of XP or a clone of the original HD?
I don’t suspect it’s the vid drivers. The computer had been working perfectly well before (and in fact the first symptom was that the computer froze while I was using it – reading SDMB no less). I wasn’t installing anything or updating anything. Just kaboom.
The spare HD has no data on it. My original theory was the that XP on the main HD was corrupted, so my plan was to install XP on the spare, then copy as much data from the old HD as I could (it’s been a month since I did backups).
However, I can’t install XP on the spare HD. The computer freezes during the process right before the point at which the install program goes from DOS type displays to graphic displays.
I have been making computers work professionally for 4 years.
I reccomend the following troubleshooting sequence for you:
Remove all cards except the Video Card. Try reinstalling. If that fixes it, then one of the removed cards has failed.
Swap the RAM out with known good RAM from a friend’s PC.
Swap the Video Card out with a known good card from a friend’s PC.
Swap the motherboard out.
Swap the power supply out.
Swap the CPU out.
As you can see, I listed swapping the CPU out last. Experience shows that in a PC, the CPU has the highest degree of QC out of any device in the PC, and it also has the lowest statistical probability of failure out of any component. Except maybe a PC speaker.
One of the first things I try is a Bios setting, usually its a boot safe mode setting. See, bioses have
protection modes & you need to unable them so the OS can write new boot code. This is
usuallyonly for a fresh install though.
I slightly modified your order. I tried RAM first, since I have new ram (<2 months old). I didn’t have any to swap, but I have 2 128’s, so I was going to try the computer with one removed, then the other.
The absolute first thing I try solves it. A first in computing history.
If losing the data on the drive isn’t the problem, this is what I’d do:
Boot with a win 95/98 boot disk, run fdisk, delete all current partitions, then create whatever partitions you want.
Install win Xp but DO NOT convert to NTFS.
If it installs properly, but fails to boot, as it is now, then there’s a mode you can boot up where you have boot logging.
Boot with that option, and find, I believe, bootlog.txt either in c: or c:\winnt.
Try to figure out what exactly is failing by that log, or have someone who knows computer look at it - or even post it on here from another computer (by copying it to the disk).