No logon screen for windows XP not even in safe mode.

[aesit]

One of my users has an XP Pro system on a Dell Inspiron 5100. They called me up the other day to say the computer would come up to where the logon screen should appear and then just stays there. The mouse appears and works but it's like it's waiting for the logon dialog to come up and it never seems to. There is some activity on the hard drive but up to that point the startup process is not THAT slow or anything and I have waited 10-15 minutes and the logon screen never appears. The color of the screen is the same as what their background is. I have tried Safe Mode and the same thing happens except the screen is black with the Safe Mode in the corners of the screen. No logon appears. I have done a lot of research and can't find any information. I tried a repair using the XP CD but the same problem persisted. I tried a:

copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe

in Recovery Mode as per an article I found with a similar problem but to no avail.

I tired a fixboot in Recovery Mode.

I tried a chkdsk in Recovery Mode.

Still not working.

Anyone have a similar issue that they found a solution for. Otherwise I guess I just redo the system. Grrr!

 

[bygeek]

Have you tried a Repair Install?

 

[aesit]

Yes I did do a repair install. Same problem.

 

[BadFrog]

You could slave the drive in another machine and run scandisk on it to see if there are any problems with the hard drive.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

 

[electronicsfreak]

Not sure if this command works in recovery mode but give it a shot. sfc/scannow .

 

[aesit]

Thanks people. I ended up doing the full install repair and the system came back up. Never did find out what caused this issue but at least I didn't need to redo the whole system.

 

[Nohjekim]

Funny I just had the happen on XP Pro installation on my second hard drive.

I got to the Windows screen and the normal background color was there, the mouse worked, and I discovered that task manager would open but nothing else.

I could use Task Manager to reboot, but not to get anything else to go.

Since I didn’t need the installation to run the computer I just removed it, but I never saw this happen before.

Mike

 

[aesit]

Good to know this does happen to other people. Funny I could not find much on it though as 99% of the problems I have had in the past are answered on the Internet. Now if someone could just come up with a a solutions other than a repair install.

 

[linney]

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

This is a layman's version of Q307545 in simple language.


A regular daily/weekly backup (full image of the drive) can be a lifesaver.