Explorer Crashed - Now Hanging on boot 1

[SGTRawlins]

Hey Ladies and Gents,

I have a client, they have come to me with thier PC, They explained the follow scenario;

They were uusing thier PC playing a game and checking thier bank account on the net when explorer crashed. The PC would not respond to any commands, the user manual powered down the PC by holding in the power button.

When the PC was re-booted you briefly recieve the follwoing error message

"front pannel audio device not connected"

The you are promted with the different boot options i.e. normal mode, safe mode etc.

If you choose normal mode then the pc presents the first windows XP splash screen and then hangs indefinatly on a black screen.

If you choose safe mode, you get a dos promt that scrolls through several windows directories and then hangs.

Any ideas on this one, my first thoughts are that it has een hit by a masive virus, the hard drive is F**** or one of the PCI cards is not seated properly seated,

I checked all the PCI and they seem to be fine.

All help is appreciated. Cheers, Robo

 

[linney]

How hard did they push the front button to power down? Have they dislodged something around that area?

Have you used the Pause key to see if you can read what is on the moving DOS screens, or are you just seeing the usual Safe Mode screen as the various drivers load and not any DOS screen at all?

314503 - Computer Stops Responding with a Black Screen When You Start Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314503&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q305/5/95.asp

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console for Windows XP (Q307654)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q307/6/54.asp

Try running ChkDsk /r from Recovery Console.

An easy to follow recovery console description when unable to start computer due to corrupt registry.

http://www.digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_mar/tutorials/cw_boot_toot.htm

If they don't work you could try repairing windows by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

 

[SGTRawlins]

They may have dilodged somthing, i will have a poke around and see what i can find.

The DOS screen the diaplays is not a DOS prompt as you say it is just a list of the drivers and apps launching for safe mode.

As for the recovery console, this was not installed before we had the issues i feel this may e out of the question.

I will however give the boot disk a go and a repair on windows, cheers for all the amswer bud, you must be a sharp card! nice one.

Have a purple star for your efforts.

 

[linney]

Recovery Console can be launched from the CD it does not have to be already on the machine. Read the article for details.

 

[SGTRawlins]

Cheers, bud, found that one out for myself.

None of these seem to be a resolution, it would seem that as soon as the process involves reading the hard drive it hangs.

i.e. During the repair process from the recovery console it lets you select which version of windows you wih to "log on to" and then just hangs.

or when you go for a complete re-install it begins scanning for previous version of windows and then hangs.

I am taking an educated guess that the hard drive is corrupt, does this sound likely.

I know that earlier in the day the customer had a power surge at thier location and were not protected against them. could this be a contributing factor? they were able to use the PC after the surge though it was not untill a couple of hours later that it crashed!

 

[linney]

Tell him to hold off buying any lotto tickets.

I suppose it might be the hard drive (I'm definitely not a hardware expert).

The hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic programs to confirm that.