Dreaded XP reboot on startup

PatO · 02-17-2005, 11:22 PM

I run into this problem from time to time when messing with hardware and the only solution I've come up with is to perform a reinstall of XP...

The problem: On boot up, I get the text screen stating something to the effect of "Windows detected that your computer did not start up properly on the last boot...". It then gives me prompts to boot into various safe modes or a regular startup. On choosing normal startup, it shows the Windows logo screen with the scroller, and after 30secs or so, it automatically reboots.

How it happened: Testing out a new wifi setup with Remote Desktop running from a computer in my house. Battery in the car died.

I've already tried the "boot with last known good config" option - no dice. And, I'm 99% sure that pulling the new wifi card will not solve matters.

Does anyone have any advice before I reinstall?

DaRacerz · 02-18-2005, 08:20 PM

Well, you could possibly rescue the drive. I've had to do it once from my stupidity of shutting down the car and letting windows finishing booting. Had an indentical symptom your describing. Anyways, I assume you have the origanol XP cd.

Before going ahead with this procedure, keep in mind it took my computer about 1 or 2 hours to fix itself. So if your going to do it, you may wanna transport the PC home to a power outlet.

Ok, now, pop in the XP cd and boot to the cd. When the Windows Setup program is up and running, you wanna to go into Repair mode. This will allow you to start into the Recovery Console. In there, you are going to have run a command "chkdsk /s/f/r"

Pretty sure thats command. When the process is done, windows should be up and running. Though, be warned, there may be broken components after the repair, but atleast it'll be working. Prolly easier just to format and make a Ghost image for the future.

Peoples · 02-18-2005, 08:25 PM

im having terrible luck with computer hardware lately. i guess i should just stick with software. i usually know what i'm doing i just get really bad luck. i just bought a brand new system....and its doing this same thing to me. first i installed fedora core....and it would only boot successfully 10% of the time...the rest of the time it looked like memory dumps, the nic would fail.....or it would just reboot. i tried 4 different sticks of ram, no dice. i installed windows. that ran beautifully....until i installed the patches.....

PatO · 02-18-2005, 11:14 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by DaRacerz

"chkdsk /s/f/r"

Doh!
So that's what that recovery console is for!!!
I think I'll have to do a little more research about it the next time it happens.

I plugged the drive (sata) into two of my other machines and it wasn't recognized AT ALL. Drive was detected, but no data present. Didn't show up as a usable drive. This means that either the partition wasn't valid or the drive is failing.

However, the data was still visible in the carputer... Hmm... At any rate, I had all the data backed up, so I did a quick format and completely re-installed. The repair option wasn't present, so a full reinstall was the only way to go. I am using MCE on that drive - the other two computers have XP. Could there be some updates to NTFS in MCE that XP can't see?

If it happens again, I'm going to get a program to make backups on DVD.

Thanks for the tip, though.