OT: Yet another computer question...

[Ragnarok]

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]

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]

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

[dogscoff]

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]

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.

[Ragnarok]

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]

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]

Well it seems to be ok now. I was heading to boot into safe mode and thought I'd give it another try in normal mode and it booted up just fine. So I don't know what was going on with it. Evidently it was the boot sector that got corrupted. But for some reason it just wasn't booting up right after I fixed it.

Anyways, thanks for all of the help!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Windows XP can repair itself, to a certain extent, I've found.

[Ragnarok]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Windows XP can repair itself, to a certain extent, I've found.

I have found that I seem to fix things by just being around. Some users complain in the morning and so I walk to their station to take a look at it. I have them walk me through what problems they are having and they can never seem to duplicate it. I leave and an hour later they complain again. I go back and they can't duplicate the error. It gets frustrating at times.