My HP Pavillion laptop 5400 running windows xp home seems to be starting normally then freezes on the large windows logo screen. When I go to F8 and restart from last known good version I says it repaired a registry setting or something and then refreezes at the same point Any advice on troubleshooting from this point on?
I had the same problem just the other day with my daughter’s XP - on a desktop machine. Same symptom. Sorry for the wet blanket, but I failed to fix the problem. In the end I re-installed XP… still have to get a new activation key for it 
BTW - this COULD have something to do with a virus overwriting the registry - I know her computer is not as well protected as it should be, and there certainly has been a recent spate of e-mail viruses…
I hope someone else comes along with better news/advice than this.
Dani
You have your XP disk, right? Boot from it, and go to the Repair Windows option. Hopefully that works.
I am not sure it even came with an XP disc. Unfortunately, it was a birthday gift for my son, and we cannot find either a manual or the EX disc anywhere, and he is usually very good about keeping things together.
To be more specific, HP does not come with a windows recovery disc. To recover you need to get to the start button, which I cannot do.
I have restored BIOS to defaults, but cannot get to the recovery section as I will not go past the windows logo page.
It almost sounds like something in one of the Run keys of the registry or a service is horking everything up. Can you get into Safe Mode? It should be in the menu you get when you hit the F8 key.
If you can get into save mode, go to start–>Run and type “msconfig” (w/out quotes), click on the Startup tab (not the startup options section), and uncheck everything in there. Click OK, restart the system. If you can get into Windows normally, then it’s a startup item that’s messing up, and you just need to go into msconfig and start checking each item one by one (rebooting each time to re-enable something) until the system freezes to find the culprit.
If it still freezes, then it’s probably a service that’s not starting properly. If this is the case, there is usually going to be an entry in the System Log (maybe the Application Log) that describes the error and tells you what service is hanging.
If you can’t get into safe mode, it’s time to drop 10 yards and punt if you don’t have a restore CD or an XP CD.
critter42
Some new machines don’t come with a CD of the OS, but you can hold down a function key during power up to do the same thing. Check the user manual for details.
Actually, from what I can gather HP doesn’t even do that. After re-explaining my problem, (the LOGO not LOG ON) screen they referred me to microsoft to download a six floppy program that is supposed to repair XP for me. I haven’t done it yet, because I am at work and didn’t bring six floppies, but will try their advice tonight and let everyone know how it comes out.
The Windows startup menu is not a function of the HP, it’s a function of XP. After you see the HP logo when you first turn on your machine, if you start hitting F8 you’ll get the startup menu - the “last known good configuration” option is usually at the bottom. The first option is “Safe Mode”. If you select “Safe Mode”, does it still freeze at the Windows Logo screen? If you can get into Safe Mode, then I am almost 90% sure you won’t need any kind of repair disks. There is still the possibility you will need the CD or repair disks, but for almost every system I’ve worked on, if I can get into Safe Mode, I can usually get the system back up and running without any kind of restore or OS CD unless there is a hardware issue.
If an HP tech is telling you that you can’t bring up the startup menu on an HP machine, I would ask to be immediately transferred to a tech that actually has a clue.
critter42
New activation key? Aren’t you putting this back on the same machine you originally installed XP on? I thought you could re-install and re-activate Windows XP an infinite number of times on the same machine. Are you saying that it won’t activate normally? Have you tried activating since the re-install? It should work. I’ve installed the one copy of XP twice on the same machine, and it activated both times.
Sorry for the hijack.
When I go to safe mode it still takes me back to the logo screen and then stops. Same with all other modes available on the F8 screen. Does that sound more like a hardware or software problem. Anyway, tonight I will try to repair using the six floppy’s I still have to download from MS. Wouldn’t it be alot easier if HP, and all manufactorers gave you a rescue disc, or an actual XP disc? I wonder why they don’t.
sorry for the late reply on this thread guys, but i am new to the message boards and am reading them now for the first time.
I have an HP Pavillion ze4100, just had the exact thing happen to me 2.5 weeks ago. My computer did come with a set of discs, OS, Wordperfect pack and trhe like, IIRC about 5 or 6 discs shrinkwrappe together. Which of course promptly got someplace safe and totally lost! If you get in touch with HP they can sell you a replacement set of the discs, not sure what it costs if you are still under warentee, but out of warantee they wanted $US 111.00 plus shipping and handling…[owchie!]
Me? Luckily I had been visiting a friend who is a linux geek and he sent home a bootable disc with SuSe Linux on it to keep my internet/email jones from hurting…
Yes you can eternally reload windows on the original machine, but after 4 uses of the cd key, you have to call down to microsoft for a new cd key. not a problem, they are very understanding=)
Now if I could just get everquest to run on linux i could get rid of windows entirely=)