xp startup wont go past "Welcome"

[ssVBAdev]

My machine is running Windows XP Pro. It has been restarting randomly for a few weeks now telling me that it is a device driver that is causing the problem. I've yet to figure out exactly what device is the cause. Well, today, during lunch the computer reboots and now I cannot get past the "Welcome to Windows" screen. "Ctrl+Alt+Del" does nothing as if the keyboard does not work. I've tried other keyboards, restaring, shutting down the machine and leaving it unplugged for a few minutes, safe-mode (although I can use the keyboard to navigate the O/S option menu I can't use "Ctrl+Alt+Del" to get into safe mode either), I've tried "Last good configuration".

If there are any thoughts out there that can help me out, I'd be quite appreciative. Googling has not helped as I can't find my specific problem. I'm feeling out of options.

(PS I'm in this forum from another computer across the hall).

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[jimp56]

two thoughts:
1) boot to xp cd and do a repair install
2) remove the hard drive, place it as a secondary hard drive in another pc on the 2nd ide channel, and run chkdsk on it, and then replace the old system hive (hardware portion of registry) with the default --

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;269075

just follow steps 6 and 7, performing the file operations through windows explorer in the other computer rather than using the recovery console. use the path c:\windows\... as opposed to c:\winnt\....

just be sure to back up the originals or rename them as specified, dont just delete them.

this will effectively brute force winxp to re-detect all hardware. then its a matter of narrowing down which driver was the original problem. would be best to remove any external devices and keep hardware config as simple as possible, the add devices one at a time to narrow down problem card/device.

 

[ssVBAdev]

Thanks jimp56. I've got the machine botted to the recovery console right now and I'm running chkdsk /r. Apparently there was a bad sector. We'll see. I hope it's not the hard drive. That'll be the third one (on three separate machines) in this office in three months. What luck.

Once the chkdsk finishes I'll try the boot again and, failing that, I'll start with the repair.

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[linney]

As to your original problem (if it boots).

To get further information about any error look in your Event viewer.

Look in the System or Application folder. You can get to the Event Viewer via right click My Computer icon and select Manage.

Any errors logged in the Event Viewer can be expanded by double clicking on the error line.

Take any event error I.D. number and search for it on these sites.

http://www.eventid.net/events.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/search.aspx

Also check any "Information" line that mentions "savedump" and you should find reference to "recovered from a bug check". This is the Stop Error that caused your problem.

You can also turn off "automatically restart after an error" so it will just halt at the fault and display the full Stop Error and blue screen.

Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties .
On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery .
Click to clear the Automatically restart check box under System failure , and then click OK . The error message on a blue screen should remain on the screen so you can record the error information.

http://www.winxptutor.com/eventlog.htm

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/5/14.asp

 

[ssVBAdev]

Thanks, Linney, for the info. I had checked the event viewer before all this but could not determine much from that either. I suppose if I had dug further... ...who knows.

As an update...

I tried to do a repair using the Windows CD. Everything went good right up until the end (isn't that the way these things go). I got an error which read "Setup cannot set the required Windows XP configuration information. This indicates an internal setup error. Contact your system administrator." Then, the next time I restarted, Windows started it's own fresh installation. All well and goo I thought, that's fine. Until it finished and rebooted and prompted for the password for the administrator password to log in. Well, after numerous attempts at trying every known password and combination of cases, I still could not get in.

So...

I'm currently copying the files to another hard drive (the buggered up one is a slave drive) and I'll just reformat, run chksdk, and start over. Hopefully I'll only lose a day of down time. As I said, I hade two hard drives fail recently and I'm getting pretty efficient at the whole starting over thing.

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[garebo]

Just a bit of possible advice. I believe you are saying that you had 3 hard drives go on 3 different pcs?
If so then you need to, before you start all over again, address the issue of why you are losing hard drives.
If we presume you are using good hard drives then we would have to look at:
Power issues: Is the power at the wall socket good? There is a $5 tester for that, green or red light on the test tells you. Power can still work but be bad at the wall outlet. Better would be to have an inexpensive UPS connected to the computer.

Air\temperature issues. Most, except some versions of some newer computers, have air coming in the front bottom of a tower, and out the top back. Some may have nothing. This, of course is done by fans with the power supply counting as a fan if it is exhausting as it should. If not, open it and turn the fan around, but be careful, you can get a shock even it its unplugged. (I use rubber gloves - there is a better way, i just havent learned it yet, lol). Either way you need good airflow inside the pc. Then you have to pay attention to airflow around the hard drive. You may have a "dead air pocket" around the hard drive, so a hard drive cooler ($10) may solve the problem, or a case fan pointed on the hard drive.
This is after you solve the other issues, of course. But i dont see going back to the same setup you had and wait for the next hard drive to go down on you. Better to fix the issue now? Just a thought and some advice that you can take or leave. Before I learned all the above things my "dead hardware" box was very big and now its small, one hard drive and one external firewire case in it. I attribute most of that to installing UPS's on all my computers and having good airflow.
Again, I only mention this as you mentioned 3 bad hard drives in a short time. Now if these hard drives work real hard 24/7, and perhaps they are used to begin with, and maybe there are other circumstances i dont know about, my advice could be a moot point. You can assess the situation better, of course.







Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[ssVBAdev]

Thanks garebo! Any advice is good advice as far as I'm concerned. I think it's just down to rotton luck though. The third hard drive is not 'bad' it's just the software on it that is (still) giving me problems. I've got all my computers on Battery backups (Usually APC 500 or high models) with surge protectors. Airflow could be a problem, I suppose, but it's just what was OEM. Oh well.

I've reinstalled windows XP now (I at the computer with the problems right now) so I need to address some of the other issues of instability with XP itself. I'll have to start a new post. I'll post back with a thread link to the new thread though.

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[ssVBAdev]

Here is the new thread I've started in regards to the instability issues... thread779-1091470

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