XP wont go past boot scree!

I have a system running, that will not go past the XP load screen. The bar continues to scroll across the screen, and thats it. It will sit there for hours doing that. To make matters more odd, it will occasionly boot, when it boots it seems to run fine, minus the fact that the Dial up modem says that there is no dial tone. This is not possible as i can pick up the phone (that is directly connected to the modem in the computer) and there is a dial tone.

Then like with the computer, it will sometimes connect. Another strange happening is that i receive a blue screen saying that the computer has been shut down to prevent damage to the system. It goes on to say that this "Stop Error" might have been caused by adding some new hardware or such. There is nothing that has been added, I did have to unhook and move the computer system though. Could this have something to do with the problem?

What i dont understand is that the computer was running very soundly not 4 hours ago before i had to move it. This made me think that i might of hooked something up wrong....And the only piece of hardware that has more than 1 place that it can be attched is the "Logitec quick Cam" Could this be the cause of all my problems?

I'll try and post the exact numbers of the error that i receive. Any and all help that anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

TheRouter

Boot with the XP disk in the drive. Open the repair console. I think it is r you have to press. Run chkdsk /r on the command line. After it finishes running, reboot. Post if that helps or not.

I attempted to run the RConsole, and it failed to load due to an error in the OS. The system in question is running Media Center. I then loaded the Media Center CD, and it does not contain a Recovery Console program, only the installer for the operating system, and a second folder containg .dll files.

But, I will try that again with a Professional version of XP, through the command line.

TheRouter

Hmmmm,

Quote:

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What i dont understand is that the computer was running very soundly not 4 hours ago before i had to move it.

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I have known some very strange things happen to computers when they were "just moved".

I would open the case and carefully remove, clean and reseat all the cards and memory sticks. Blow the lint out with compressed air and clean the contacts with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol or a proprietary contact cleaner.

Wear a grounding strap, or ground yourself regularly on the bare metal of the case. Check that all cables are firmly connected. HDD, CD, DVD, Floppy

Re-assemble the machine with the minimum of peripherals, that is keyboard, mouse, display screen.

Then try it again. You can then add other peripherals such as the printer, scanner, camera, speakers, joystick and so on.

I am certain that this is a hardware issue. You powered down the machine in the proper fashion before moving it? If so, the OS cannot have become corrupted unless there was another "electrical event" that you haven't mentioned?

;)

nihil is probably correct.. When you "just move" your computer something might be dislodged.

As for your modem problem, it's highly likely you connected the phone and line jacks the wrong way around. There's only a relatively 'simple' relayswitch that switches between line-> modem or line -> phone. You're phone would still work but the modem would be connected to the phone instead of the line when it switches online..

Howdy..

Have you tried doing a restore to last known good configuration option.?

after the BIOS menu dissapears press F8, then choose last known good configuration and see if that fixes the problem..

Also unplug the webcam, and the modem, and see if that helps. If it boots up fine, then you know it's one or the other.

just shut down the system and plug one in either the modem or the camera, and then boot the machine back up, if it works then shut down again and plug the other item in, if it buggers up then you know it's the last item that was plugged in that might be causing the glitch..

but if it does not work after plugging the first item back in then you know what is causing the glitch.

just a few ideas i thought i would put forward into the discussion. :)

cheers
acidtone.. :)

It really pisses me off when I look at a thread and try to help someone and they come back with. Oh well the media center cd doesn't have a repair console on it. Where in your first post did you say windows xp media center???? When you want help give all possible details of the system you are having problems with.


If you don't have any thing loose inside press f8 on boot and try to see if it will boot into safemode with a command prompt. Then run chkdsk /r and see if it repairs any bad sctors.

TheRouter

You know...I cant find anything that says Media Centre does not have a repair console .....

Maybe you have a limited copy of the OS....
is it a legit cd???

MLF

Sorry that I forgot to metion that it was running Media Center. As for any loose parts, etc, everything is securely mounted and well connected to the correct places. To my knowledge, there was no "unknown electrical anomoly", (i'd never do anything with a computer without using a grounding bracelet.) When the system does come up, and i try a restore, it has no effect other than reverting the hard-drive back to a prior time. The problem of terribly slow boot times, or not booting at all still persists. When the computer does come up it runs just fine, quick as the blazes and runs like normal, just says no dial tone with the modem. (Which is good, I checked it in another system). And as i stated i am unable to locate the Rconsole with my Media Center disk, yes it is legitment, but it was purchased two days after release...hmmm

So I have already backed up any files that I care about and now am curious as to best way to reformat, the machine. Unfortuantly it does not have a Floppy drive. I've tried to boot it in safe mode and use the command prompt, but of course it will not dump because the volume is being used. Does anyone know another way to get just a command prompt to load instead of having to load it through the OS?

The Router

The best way to reformat would be with the install disk. Just delete the partition and reinstall.

Here are some good guides on securing a new xp system by pooh sun tzu:

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=255353
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=255443

AFAIK, Windows XP Media Center is just regular XP with a few bells and whistles.

On the CD there should be an I386 folder, this should contain Winnt32.exe. That is what you want.

The command Winnt32.exe /cmdcons should load the recovery console into Windows startup.OR:

If you boot from the CD, get to the "Welcome to setup" screen and hit the F10 key or enter R.

Quote:

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I've tried to boot it in safe mode and use the command prompt, but of course it will not dump because the volume is being used.

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I am not sure what you mean by that...................can you get into safe mode and the command prompt, or into safe mode and not the command prompt?

Have you cleaned and reseated everything and blown all the lint out of it?

You might try this:

1. Remove all peripheral devices that are not needed such as printers, cameras, speakers, etc.
2. Boot into safe mode and edit your startup to exclude AV, firewall, automatic updates and any other non-essential services and applications.
3. In device manager, remove the modem.
4. Reboot into normal mode.
5. Windows should detect the modem, so reinstall it.

Let me know what happens.



:)

Well I found that it was a defective memory chip. What bothers me though, being a defective memory chip, shouldnt it of told me in the post boot that the system was not running the amount of memory that it was before. I say this becasue, when you remove a memory chip, then boot the system, it will run a memory test. The computer never did run a memory test, nor did it give me any indication that the chip was failing. It took me havinging to remove it and place it in a different computer system before I was givin any kind of information on it. Once I placed the chip in my main system, it recognized the chip, but did not add any more memory to it. So I took a working chip out of the big system and placed it in the XP MC system and low and behold it works just fine.

I had made sure everything was very clean and such, and used a can of compressed air to blow it out. (Wanst very dirty anyway, i dont smoke or anything, and it is in a static free enviroment, with no carpet and such.)

Strange fix but it worked, just put me out 56 dollars!

TheRouter

well XP is memory intense...much more so then a BIOS check.

AFAIK...all the BIOS does is count it...doenst really run anything in it...unlike XP...where it runs pretty much all in memory

MLF

Hmmm, It is hard to predict what will happen when RAM chips become defective. If they actually "die", then you can expect to be told, just as if you add or remove them, but malfunctions are frequently undetected unless you run a memory test.

I would guess that you had "quick boot" enabled in the BIOS so it did not do a RAM check. It saw that the card was still there and moved on. It did not detect any physical change, so it did not run the test you mention.

If the system detects a memory problem you generally hear it from the BIOS "beeps" but if you don't have an internal speaker you won't hear this. Also, your BIOS would need to be set to do a memory test on bootup.

That is one of the reasons I never enable "quick boot" ;)