Emergency Windows XP Computer Help Needed

[savedbygrace]

I need help.

Windows XP SP2 on my computer will not start. Earlier this morning, everything was going great, then Firefox locked up while doing a Google search. Locked up tight, and I had to press and hold the power button for several seconds to shut down.

Now, when I power up, everything goes well through POST until Windows tries to start up, then the screen goes black and all disk activity ceases. After waiting several minutes with nothing happening, pressing the power button for a fraction of a second shuts the computer down.

I've tried booting to Last Known Good Configuration - same result.

I've tried booting into Safe Mode - same results. When I boot so I can see each startup event happening, the last event that prints to the screen is:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\FONTS\vgaoem.fon

Then, all disk activity ceases and nothing else happens.

I built this computer myself - it's a P4 2.4GHz with 1GB RAM on an Asus mobo.

I do not want to lose all the data on the boot drive. Some of it is not backed up since two days ago, including Quicken and QuickBooks.

One big obstacle is that I originally installed this from an early WinXP full install CD, before SP1, and I've updated through SP1 to SP2. So, booting from the install disc won't help. I do have an SP2 disc from Microsoft, but I doubt that is bootable.

Help!

[KoRn]

Boot up with a Windows XP install CD, and choose repair option. Then boot into the Recovery Console and do a FIXBOOT and FIXMBR. Then reboot and see if you can get back on.

If not, your OS is likely corrupted and you will have to reinstall.

If you didn't keep good backups, try this with a USB Drive:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

[pabianice]

Opened an unknown attachment, did we?

[steveo]

I made the cd a bootable device, and ran the program from the cd.

[zeugma]

I haen't read all the way down the thread yet, so I don't know if you've considered this, but we had a fellow in my office who had his desktop crater on him in a fashion similar to yours. The windows geeks couldn't do anything to get it to boot short of a complete reinstall.

The only way we could get to his data was to boot with Knoppix. We sucked the data off across the network. Once his system was rebuilt, we pulled the data back across. If your Mac has an sshd daemon running, you could pretty much do the same thing.

[RichardW]

I had to dump firefox because it became unstable. I suspect I'm not alone. I'm now using IE 7. So far it works great.

[zeugma]

I suggest getting into the system and re-seating all of your connectors.

Not a bad idea at all. Shouldn't hurt anything to do it anyway. Probably go ahead and reseat cards and memory while you've got it all apart :-)

[ChildOfThe60s]

Also, I don't see this as it, but always check the easiest stuff first, even if it is less likely. That is, check the ribbon cable to the HD and reseat it. It know of several instances where that fixed what was thought to be a HD failure.

[radiohead]

Since you suggested Apple, I will assume you are an Apple person and ask this question,

I've been asked to see if my univ can set up a video link for me w/another school, using a "macintosh computer with an iSight camera". I know we have set ups for videoconferencing w/PCs and am checking on the mac availability.

My question is, is videoconferencing dependant on a shared operating system? It doesn't make much sense to create a system to communicate with others and then require that they be Apple people; why not make it a cross platform application?

Any thoughts on this? Maybe the person sending me the email thinks you need a mac to do this.

[RJS1950]

If you boot from the XP CD and select repair it may work if there is some corruption in the XP boot files. It sounds more like there is a problem with the hard drive. If you can boot from the CD and scan the HD with fix repair you might be able to isolate bad/corrupted sectors on the HD and then possibly do a repair or reload.

[RightFighter]

Running a chkdsk will ensure the major OS components are in line with the standard Windoze setup. /f will repair anything that's gone wonky.

Actually, that's not what chkdsk does at all. Chkdsk checks for errors on the hard drive - it has nothing to do with the OS, only the underlying hardware. It will search for cross-linked files, files with invalid names, etc., but it doesn't check the files against the "standard Windoze setup" at all.

That said, Chkdsk /f is one of my most-used commands for PC troubleshooting. It will solve all manner of problems that people experience with slow performance, boot problems, etc..

[Joan Kerrey]

One big obstacle is that I originally installed this from an early WinXP full install CD, before SP1, and I've updated through SP1 to SP2. So, booting from the install disc won't help. I do have an SP2 disc from Microsoft, but I doubt that is bootable.

I haven't the slightest idea what the above post means. Having never had a problem with any computer, built by someone else, I've ever owned what I'd do is throw the computer, monitor and all software in the trash to recycle and buy a new one that was built by someone else.

[rarestia]

I won't split hairs here. If the utility finds errors with system files (which it checks for consistency) it will repair them. chkdsk /f will "fix errors on the disk." I've seen it bring a corrupt Windoze system file back in line and allow a boot. Chkdsk has evolved quite a bit from the DOS days, but I don't believe I necessarily misinformed in my explanation.

[zeugma]

Forgive me, I just can't help myself. I did try to help the person,though.

I think there is a 10-step program that might work for you.

I should talk, because I'm the exact same way most of the time :-) 

 

[RichardW]

The poster said that Firefox was being used. What side of the bed did you get up on this morning? I've used both and I stopped using Firefox because it stopped working correctly. I don't know what your problem is but I'm not buying whatever it is you're selling.

[shadowman99]

Firefox was running at the time of the crash, but that doesn't mean Firefox is responsible for the crash. There might were probably 40-60 other Processes that were memory resident at the time. There's no saying that any of them were responsible. If it's a hardware problem, the system crashes because of a hardware issue, not a software issue. So I agree, the IE propaganda doesn't add to helping this guy solve his problem.

[RichardW]

I never said it did. What I said was that Firefox became unstable on my machine and when I stopped using it my problems stopped. Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

I never reinstalled XP. Never did anything except to change browsers and the problems stopped. And don't even start me on Thunderbird. That thing got so screwed up that it virtually brought everything to a standstill.

I'm not here to defend Microsoft. I'm just relating my own personal experience. Make of it what you will.

I'm also not arguing that the hard drive on his machine might not be faulty. But before I would go that route I would try other things. My wife's machine was supposedly in need of a new hard drive but when I reinstalled the operating system the problems went away. Strangely enough her machine is still using Firefox and Thunderbird.

This is really hard to believe but it is true. At some point in time about 16 copies of the operating system were installed on her hard drive during a thunderstorm. I couldn't figure that deal out but it took forever to boot up. I tried the usual utility programs but nothing worked. However, reformatting and reinstalling the operating system fixed the problem and that was over a year ago. The hardest part was finding and reinstalling all of the drivers. That hard drive I was told was faulty still soldiers on although I was informed by "experts" that the hard drive was most certainly fried.

[Gone_Postal]

I had the same problem
I looked into two problems first the Hard Drive I was able to use it as a slave and retain my infomation. My second problem was my graphic card seems to be damaged I put my old card in and my puter works fine.

[Political Junkie Too]

This will be the third time I've had to take the same action in the past year or two

The same thing happened to me with a brand new Dell XPS. I lost the boot sector twice in six months. I had to have Dell send me a new hard drive.

However, I was able to reinstall Windows XP as a new install in a new partition (or was it a repair install?). Anyway, don't delete the existing partition -- that preserved my data. Then, I was able to back up all of my existing data before reinstalling the OS fresh. Of course, I did all this after the first loss of the boot sector (before knowing that it would happen again).

Since replacing the HD, it never happened again.

-PJ