OT: Yet another computer question...

Ragnarok · #1 February 21st, 2006, 01:07 PM

Yesterday a user came in and went to boot her computer and after going through POST it came up with the menu as if we'd hit the F8 key. It gives the option of Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc. If I select any of the options and hit enter to continue it just freezes there and does nothing. I have to hit the power button to power down and restart. It does the same thing for all of the options listed. So basically we can't boot the computer.

I have no idea what could've happened to the machine as it was shut down properly previously with no error messages or problems.

So today I am working on getting it resolved and I decided to go into the recovery console to fix the boot sector. Oh, this is Windows XP Pro BTW. I used the 'fixboot' command and restarted. Now I can power up the machine, get past POST and it will display the XP logo as if it is going to boot fine. However, after a couple seconds there it will go back to POST and just repeat the cycle.

I am looking for solutions on the web but have not found anything yet. Do any of you have any suggestions?

As always, thanks for your help!

Suicide Junkie · #2 February 21st, 2006, 01:29 PM

What happens if you put a fresh drive+OS into the PC? Will it boot?

If not, you've got hardware issues.
If it does work, copy the files off the old drive, format & reinstall. (Set the old drive as a slave on a different PC, in order to copy the files, 'natch)

Thermodyne · #3 February 21st, 2006, 02:04 PM

Boot to safe mode and check the event logs. Sounds like you might have a malware infection of some type.

dogscoff · #4 February 21st, 2006, 02:17 PM

If you can't even get into safe mode, you'll want a bootable CD or floppy. You might have to adjust the BIOS to let you boot from one of these. I think XP makes it hard to examine/ copy files and folders on the system from this kind of boot but I daresay there are ways around it.

Ragnarok · #5 February 21st, 2006, 02:38 PM

Quote:

dogscoff said:
If you can't even get into safe mode, you'll want a bootable CD or floppy. You might have to adjust the BIOS to let you boot from one of these. I think XP makes it hard to examine/ copy files and folders on the system from this kind of boot but I daresay there are ways around it.

I am not sure we have any bootable CDs or floppy's (floppies?) around here. If not I will create one.

geoschmo · #6 February 21st, 2006, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Ragnarok said:
I am not sure we have any bootable CDs or floppy's (floppies?) around here. If not I will create one.

The XP install CD is bootable. But if the PC came with XP already installed you may not have an XP install CD.

Ragnarok · #7 February 21st, 2006, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Thermodyne said:
Boot to safe mode and check the event logs. Sounds like you might have a malware infection of some type.

I thought the same thing. I was originally unable to get into safe mode. However I haven't tried going into safe mode ever since I used fixboot.

SJ - I am pretty sure it is software related. Once I do a few other things here I will switch HDs to make sure.

Thanks for the tips so far.

rdouglass · #8 February 22nd, 2006, 06:25 PM

I suspect it may have been a stuck key on the keyboard. I have seen that before - a stuck delete key that throws you into the BIOS setup. Many BIOS' default to not report errors now and I don't think that key displays an error anyways.

Just my $.02 with another option that hadn't been considered.