Very weird Problem

Listen to this weird little probelm that just happned to me

I have a computer 2.8ghz P4 XP pro and 1.5gb of ram. I turned on the PC and it startes up Windows XP and once it got ot the welcome screen it wouldn't go any farther. I could hear the computer still loading up but my screen just stayed at the Welcom screen. So after a couple restarts and going into safe mode once, I fired up another PC on my network to post the problem here. So while I turned that one on, I turned the PC that had been causing problems on, and sure enough it went all the way to the desktop.

A person that uses this computer of mine told me that he had the same problem last week. The computer wouldn't go past the welcome screen untill the other computer on the network was turned on.

Also when I booted into safe mode I couldn't get the internet connection to work. I couldn't even connect to my router through my browser.

This is a very strange problem to mel. Maybe somebody here has had a similiar problem.

btw: I'm using a Nvidia Gforce 4 TI420 8x graphics card.

well.. in safe mode.. you won't have access to a lot of things so forget that as being a problem.

why don't you boot up creating a bootlog.txt file and look at the file to see what errors you get.

or in safe mode.. disable most of your startup items.. I don't use xp but doesn't xp have an msconfig utility ?

edit: here..
http://pages.zdnet.com/hampsi/Articles/startup.htm

edit #2 : being as it seems to be dependant on the other pc booting up.. it could be that if you're running NAT and the other pc is the primary one.. then your first one is simply "looking for" that pc.. hmmm.. i didn't word that too well.. maybe someone can rescue me and state it a little clearer

yeah going to start then run and typing in msconfig will brink you a utlility to edit what starts up.

To create a bootlog.txt file do I just press f8 at startup and choose something there that will log the boot process?

Quote:

---

To create a bootlog.txt file do I just press f8 at startup and choose something there that will log the boot process?

---

Yes.. there is such a selection

Thanks for the help.

I do have a router that uses NAT so maybe thats part of the problem. I'll check that out and that link. Thanks for the help

http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1
Windows XP Stops Responding at the Welcome Screen

It might apply to you; the microsoft article tends to blame a corrupted "memory snapshot." However, the problem did involve the use of the hibernating feature, which may or may not be relevant to your case.

Good luck

cheyenne .... can I point out that by default XP starts up in safe mode without network support... but if you press F8 at boot up there should be an option to start with network support. Has nothing to do with NAT or the router...

Z

[edit] as for the remainder of the problem... i think sumdumguy is on the right track but if you got a router already on this shouldn't really be a problem since the router will be the primary gateway - by the way is the router a linux box or something like a linksys??

The routers a linksys befsx41 firwall router.


I should of known to boot in safe mode with networking support, but didn't do it.
I think sumdumguy might be right about the one computer being the primary computer. Before all this I had a linksys BEFSR41 and the computer that I used was the always the primary computer, but I never had that problem.

Thanks for the help though.

Are you by any chance sharing any resources from the second computer?

I've had this problem before when windows (XP Pro) was trying to reconnect network drives and network printers when they wern't turned on.

It took a really really long time to find out that the second computer and the printer wern't turned on. I guess this was because I had about 8 mapped drives to my server.... and the 2 network printers.

As soon as I turned on the server, it came up right away. Or, I can unmap the drives and that also works fine. I created a logon script to connect/disconnect me from mapped drives to resolve the problem. I didn't really look into it much more than the workaround... :rolleyes:

I do have some mapped drives to that computer. They're not working properly though as I am having some trouble where computer 1 can ping computer 2, but computer 2 can't ping computer 1.

Maybe the problem is in that area somewhere. I'll delet those mapped drives though and see if that solves it.

F8? I have always used F10 to boot to safe mode

hey Cheyenne

think I've got the solution to the problem... its exactly like phisphreek says - described here

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;816873

work around is pretty much the same as what phish indicated

hope that helps

Z

[edited for being totally crap and being on a different planet tonight.... don't know what I was thinking :D]

Unless I am missing something new, that menu is generated after the BIOS has finsihed doing it's thAng. When I hear the word Safe Mode I think of windows Safe mode. Which is a product of the nt kernal loader and alternate incarnations of newer OS releases. The BIOS startup (boot selection) is a menu that enables certain devices to boot, like CD-Rom or Nic or Diskette etc. My Dell is F12 but that doesn't get me into Windows recovery mode (see below), it just gives an option for the location of boot files, whatever they may be. Hiting F8 is a function of Windows.

/edited later for horrible grammer and to add, that once you enter the bios boot menu and select a boot drive the Windows OS assumes there is a problem and produces the OS start Menu. Very interesting, I have never entered it through that mechanism before. I still have a habit of thinking in NT Terms for XP.

Yeah, F10 is what you press to select which drive you want to boot to, but for OS boot choices, its F8, at least for windows that is.

Looks like I did have a couple drives mapped to that machine. I think that will solve it.
Thanks for all the help.

now if all else fails..

Thats the number one fix to all computer problems sumdumguy.

:cool: