PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: firfirikos on November 12, 2003, 14:58
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Suddenly i have this problem:My pc can't start winXp and it stacks before starting them.The strange thing is that when i change BIOS to boot from cd (the cd of WindowsXp) i see:"press any key to boot from cd".i' don't press any key and it starts winXP.When i have in bios "boot from hard drive" it stacks. ???
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Hi firfirikos, Welcome aboard :)
It sounds like its not reading the system files on the hard drive.
Have you had the OS on for a long time or is it a recent installation ?
Have you tried doing a system restore or start in last known good config ?
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It sounds like its not reading the system files on the hard drive.
Have you had the OS on for a long time or is it a recent installation ?
Have you tried doing a system restore or start in last known good config ?
I made format on hard drive c and i installed again winXp but....nothing....
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Whats the exact sequence that you have set the bios to when you have it set to boot from hard drive and have you just got the one drive installed and if so is it set as a master ?
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I don't think that it is from bios the problem,because i set default settings (in bios) and the problem didn't dissapear...
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We have to work through this problem in a logical order so it would be nice to know what the boot sequence is set at in bios and how many drives and partitions you have and if the boot drive is set as a master :)
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We have to work through this problem in a logical order so it would be nice to know what the boot sequence is set at in bios and how many drives and partitions you have and if the boot drive is set as a master :)
Yes,you are right...so..
Primary master:Hard disk
Primary slave:auto
Secondary master:cd-rom
Secondary slave cd-rw
Removable device None
Ide harddrive w123..(tha name of hard drive )
atapi cd-rom none
other boot device none
I have 1 hard drive and no partitions...only C:
thanks for your help..
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So in the bios when it wouldnt boot from the hard drive was it set to boot from HDD 0 ?
I apologise for asking such basic questions but I dont know what level of expertise you have and so I have to assume that you may know very little :)
If it was set to HDD 0 then have you run CHKDSK, that will tell you if you have any probs with the drive or file system ?
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I have done chkdsk but still nothing...
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When you select boot from CD does it go into windows and run normally or does it try to reinstall XP ?
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When you select boot from CD does it go into windows and run normally or does it try to reinstall XP ?
It goes into windows and run normally!
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Can you get into safe mode when the bios is set to boot from the hard drive ?
If not then I think that there is a problem with the MBR ???
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Can you get into safe mode when the bios is set to boot from the hard drive ?
If not then I think that there is a problem with the MBR ???
But it stacks before windows loading,when it boots from hard disk,and i can't get into safe mode
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A bit of a long shot but did you format the drive and then reinstall XP or did you let XP format it as it was installing ?
I have found this in microsofts knowledge base :
SYMPTOMS
After you install Windows XP, you may observe a "Previous Operating System on Drive Letter:" entry on the Boot menu.
CAUSE
This problem can occur if your hard-disk partition had been created and formatted before you installed Windows XP.
RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, modify the Boot.ini file to remove this entry.
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I format the drive and then reinstall...
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Hi!
Just wondering what the stack message you are getting says.
I'd hazard a guess that something on the machine is not initialising correctly when you try and boot into normal XP. Waiting for the CD question to time out is giving it enough (and hence allowing XP to load).
Long shot: Have you tried powering up without any USB devices attached?
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Just wondering what the stack message you are getting says.
It just stacks...it doesn't have any message...
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Hiya Firfirikos,
I think what Dack actually meant was, "What are the details in the message box that comes up, or on the Blue Screen Of Death?" You know - all those whacky numbers and stuff.
It is my (somewhat limited) understanding that those numbers usually indicate what the memory stack is up to.
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I think that as good as firfirikos english is, I think maybe he means that it sticks, my greek is non existant apart from ouzo so hes way up on me there :)
Did you have a look to see if the boot.ini showed the previous OS installation like the MS article said could cause that same fault ?
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Hi Firfirikos,
Well, I have a very limited knoledge, but I think that it might give the techies some light on your problem if you go to:
Control Panel
System - Advance - booting and recuperation (Sorry, I'm trying to translate from french, so I think you'll understand what I mean), and click on "Parameter" which will open a new small window.
Can you tell us please, what it says litterally on the top as the default OS and the time fixed for booting?
after that if you press "Modify", it'll open a note pad. Please "Copy - Past" what is in it.
Hope you understand me. And I think that this will be useful for others.
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I also had winxp before the format.
boot.ini :
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
but, i don't have any partitions....
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Hi again
Well, I see that you are now on the forum. As you are present and techies are not here yet, I see that what you copied and pasted from that "note pad" is correct. But It might be useful too that you tell us the answer of my first question, which is in the window just before the "note pad". I asked that:
Can you tell us please, what it says litterally on the top as the default OS and the time fixed for booting?
So, try now to do it to see if there is a problem there. If not, then it's hard for me. It'll be techies' speciality.
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Can you tell us please, what it says litterally on the top as the default OS and the time fixed for booting?
So, try now to do it to see if there is a problem there. If not, then it's hard for me. It'll be techies' speciality.
It says :"Microsoft WindowsXp Home Edition"/fastdetect
and time 30 sec...
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Firfirkos, I think that we are still waiting for an answer to reply #18 before we can proceed with this.
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Firfirkos, I think that we are still waiting for an answer to reply #18 before we can proceed with this.
My pc sticks...(it stops before windows bar loading) :brick:
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I think Clive was referring to this on post 15 that I again asked if you had checked it on post 18 ;)
I have found this in microsofts knowledge base :
SYMPTOMS
After you install Windows XP, you may observe a "Previous Operating System on Drive Letter:" entry on the Boot menu.
CAUSE
This problem can occur if your hard-disk partition had been created and formatted before you installed Windows XP.
RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, modify the Boot.ini file to remove this entry.
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I am fairly certain that there is an error in the boot.ini or similar stopping your pc from loading the windows system files.
I know that you arent getting any error message but if you follow the instructions in this article, after checking the boot.ini hasnt got the previous XP installation listed as suggested above, it may help to sort your problem out :)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184&Product=winxp (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184&Product=winxp)
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If you want to try this and it boots into XP from the floppy then I would think a reinstall is necessary :
Create A XP Boot Disk from System Files
As a hedge against being unable to start XP, you can create a boot disk specifically for Windows XP that may allow you to boot the operating system. This can occur when the active partition boot record or other required files become corrupted.
Using Windows XP, place a blank floppy in drive A and format the disk. Navigate to the root folder of the system (in most cases this will be C:\) and copy the following files to the floppy disk.
Boot.ini
NTLDR
Ntdetect.com
If you can't see the files, click [Tools] and [Folder Options...] in the Menu Bar of Windows Explorer. Click the [View] tab and click the radio button next to [Show Hidden Files and Folders]. Remove the check mark next to [Hide Protected Operating System Files (Recommended)] then click [Apply] and [OK]. The files should now be visible in Windows Explorer. If the files still cannot be copied, right click each file, click [Properties] and remove the checkmark from the Read-Only attributes. Reset whatever attributes were unchecked after the copy procedure is completed.
In addition to the files listed above, check the same directory for bootsect.dos and ntbootdd.sys files. If they are present on your system, copy them to the same floppy diskette.
The disk is used as any other boot disk, inserting it into the floppy drive (A:\) and initiating a cold boot. Make sure the BIOS is set so that the A:\ drive is first in the boot sequence.
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holy crap i didn't know you could do that HAHAHAH :D where did u find this little tid-bit?
To the problem at hand. You may have stated this but is this a new installation or one that has important files to be saved? If it is a new installation make sure the winxp disk you used wasn't damaged. Don't take that comment as an insult ive known experianced techies to have had the same problem. Second question, did u repartician using a win98 bootdisk... completely delete all the particians...? because it could be a virus left on the hard drive hendering the installation. just a thought
Do u have a copy of norton system works? have you tried using this to see if the registry is damaged in any way? It never hurts to ask questions when trying to diagnose a problem.
Do u have a restore cd.. ?have you tried using it? :-* ;)
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Its all out there on the web if you look hard enough Bob ;)
Take note though Bob that it says :
"you can create a boot disk specifically for Windows XP that may allow you to boot the operating system."
So it may not always work depending what other faults are present ;)
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Some more information:
When i reboot my pc,it's shutting down.like pressing the "shut down" key..
and i followed the instructions from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184&Product=winxp (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184&Product=winxp) but still remains the problem...
The cd of winXp is allmost new,i had checked the registry and the hard disk with norton utilities...
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You havent got the MSBLAST worm or another virus have you ?
Can you tell us why you formatted and reinstalled XP in case that has any relevance, I assume that you installed XP on the drive while it was in this PC and not in another one ???
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As far as I know, there should be no difference at all between booting off HDD as the first boot device and booting off HDD as the second boot device ??? It is very strange that just this difference allows the machine to boot.
Could it be a BIOS corruption (or bug) do you think Sandra?
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Not sure Adept thats why I am curious to know if there was a problem before that made him decide to format and reinstall.
Its very strange that if it boots into XP and runs fine afterwards that it isnt doing it from the hard drive ???
Thinking back to what Dack posted earlier about it not having time to boot from the hard drive but managing to do it from the cd, would disabling Quick Boot in bios possibly help ?
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You havent got the MSBLAST worm or another virus have you ?
Can you tell us why you formatted and reinstalled XP in case that has any relevance, I assume that you installed XP on the drive while it was in this PC and not in another one ???
No,i haven't got any virus...i have norton antivirus and i checked it.I have my pc one and a half year and i format it every six months.that's why i formated it.
Do you bilieve that the problem has any relation with hardware?
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Not if you havent changed it from the way it was running before you formatted and reinstalled.
Can you check in the bios and see if quick boot is enabled and try it with it disabled ?
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Sorry for butting in there, I just wanted to say
Hi Firfirikos
And Welcome to PC-Pals, I see you are being well looked after :)
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Which motherboard have you got ?
I am just wondering if maybe after the re install that it needs the drivers updating, especially if its a VIA chipset on it.
Maybe the IDE controllers arent using the best drivers but they are good enough for the CD rom and eventually the hard drive ???
I am clutching at straws here of course but there appears to be something missing in this new installation to what was on the old one :)
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Hi Firfirikos
And Welcome to PC-Pals, I see you are being well looked after :)
Hi!They are all doing the best they can!! :)
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Which motherboard have you got ?
I am just wondering if maybe after the re install that it needs the drivers updating, especially if its a VIA chipset on it.
Maybe the IDE controllers arent using the best drivers but they are good enough for the CD rom and eventually the hard drive ???
I am clutching at straws here of course but there appears to be something missing in this new installation to what was on the old one :)
I disabled quick boot but still nothing...i think my pc can't find tha hard disk...i have asus motherboard..It sticks after PCI listing and betweens some others i saw:"IDE controllers IRQ:14/15
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Does your ASUS board have VIA chipsets ?
If it does get the latest 4 in 1 drivers for it from here :
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2
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Just wondering how many USB devices you have attached. (And if you are using a powered hub).
If you have too much current being drawn on startup then all sorts of strange symptoms occur - the most common being a lock up of the system when trying to boot.
Booting from CD may simply be giving the devices enough time to stabilise and so not crash the rest of the system.
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Just wondering how many USB devices you have attached. (And if you are using a powered hub).
If you have too much current being drawn on startup then all sorts of strange symptoms occur - the most common being a lock up of the system when trying to boot.
Booting from CD may simply be giving the devices enough time to stabilise and so not crash the rest of the system.
The problem did not appear after formating c,but (with a second thought) when a put headset in my pc (microphone and ear speakers).So what i should do now?i took away mikrophone but still nothing..
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Does your ASUS board have VIA chipsets ?
If it does get the latest 4 in 1 drivers for it from here :
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2
I downloaded ,i installed it,but...tha same!
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Have you anything else attached by USB, camera, scanner or printer or even any external drives such as a hard drive or a cd writer ?
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Have you anything else attached by USB, camera, scanner or printer or even any external drives such as a hard drive or a cd writer ?
I have printer connected with usb.But Dack said that system locked up..I didn't put the mikrophone now,but the problem didn't dissapear..
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Tell me if this is a stupid idea, as I'm only guessing, but how about getting started with the CD, then uninstalling the hard drive in Device Manager, then rebooting to see if Windows finds it again? It's a long shot, but might be worth a try.
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Tell me if this is a stupid idea, as I'm only guessing, but how about getting started with the CD, then uninstalling the hard drive in Device Manager, then rebooting to see if Windows finds it again? It's a long shot, but might be worth a try.
Yes windows find it again,but only when i boot with cd.
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Still clutching at straws, but the only other thing I can suggest is to use the CD to do a 'Repair' installation of XP. I know you've just formatted, but maybe something didn't go quite right, and an overlay installation might just fix it.
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Another long shot here is that you may simply have a faulty CD drive that is not initialising correctly unless you have a disc in it. That would hang the IDE bus and not allow the machine to boot.
Simple check - just disconnect the IDE cable from the CD drive and see what happens.
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No,i haven't got any virus...i have norton antivirus and i checked it.I have my pc one and a half year and i format it every six months.that's why i formated it.
Do you bilieve that the problem has any relation with hardware?
Just formatting wont remove a virus from the disk.. you half to delete the particians and start completely over to remove any viruses that might still be lerking around. And don't forget if your just bootscanning with a norton cd then you don't have all the up to date definition files.
If i were you, i would get a win98 startup disk and delete the present particians on the disk. Then just stick the xp cd in and let it repartician and install. See if the problem persist.
I have a theory thats held up with my technical needs. 99.9% of all problems have the simplist of solutions
Just a thought...I bought a burner not to long ago 52x24x52 seemed like a good deal too. writes great but the odd thing is it cant read worth crap. Half the files i pull off cds with it are corrupted. Theres no way i would waste an hour installing windows through that drive because its a likely possiblity it would be a corrupted installation.
You always half to take in the sh#t happens factor.
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I disabled quick boot but still nothing...i think my pc can't find tha hard disk...i have asus motherboard..It sticks after PCI listing and betweens some others i saw:"IDE controllers IRQ:14/15
Hold on firfirikos. Are you saying that Windows doesn't even begin to start and that it sticks after the BIOS summary screen?
It would seem to me that this has nothing to do with Windows at all :-\ Try what Dack said and see if that makes a difference.
Edit. Typos ::)
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Another long shot here is that you may simply have a faulty CD drive that is not initialising correctly unless you have a disc in it. That would hang the IDE bus and not allow the machine to boot.
Simple check - just disconnect the IDE cable from the CD drive and see what happens.
I did it but still nothing....
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Another thing worth trying is possibly checking to make sure the partition on the drive you are booting from is active.
In the bios I take it you've got 'boot sector virus protection' switched off - otherwise you wouldn't have installed correctly.
Suggestions?
1. Make an XP recovery/boot disc - or download one from www.bootdisk.com
2. boot from the bootdisk then run fdisk
3. check to see that the partition on your hard drive is set to 'active'
Alternative possabilities
- power? When you disconnected the IDE cable from the CD did you also disconnect the power lead from it?
- Spin up time of hard drive. Doubt this but how long have you left the machine for when it seems to have stuck?
- Hard drive a bit flakey. Have you tried booting it in another machine? This would at least discount the drive if it did boot. Also worth downloading the manufacturers test software and switching on/off SMART in the bios.
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Thank you ALL for your help...
Finally I 'll go to a profesional tech. ;D
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Sorry to hear that nothing has worked for you firfirikos. Computers can be such a pain sometimes. :'(
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Please let us know the outcome, Firfirikos, it may help someone else in the future. :)
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Hi Firfircos,
Let me please go a little farer in my idea although - probably it'll make the techies laugh at me.
do the following, as I said to you before:
Control Panel
System - Advance - booting and recuperation (Sorry, I'm trying to translate from french, so I think you'll understand what I mean), and click on "Parameter" which will open a new small window.
Then it tells you up in that window the version of windows which you have there. (You already told us the answer). Well, now, what I suggest that you scroll it down and see if there is only that option or it has another option? If it has another option of "Windows Home Edition", choose the other one. and press OK.
I'm telling that thinking that, maybe your PC didn't wipe the boot ini of your first installation of XP. Maybe it added a second one similar to it after the second installation.
Sorry to be too simple in my imagination. But as you hope nothing anymore here, it'll cost you nothing to try as a last idea. sorry again.
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AGAIN!!!Hello again!!If you remember i went to a tech.He told me that he had done a change in bios settings and the problem solved.Yesterday i changed bios settings in default settings and it appeared the problem again.I can't find the tech again to ask him and i don't know which setting i have to change.Any ideas?(in devise priority i have first tha hard disk and i have out it master slave also)
(sorry for my terribly english :-[)
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Hello again :) If you can tell us the model of the motherboard we can then have a look at the bios settings that can cause this sort of problem.
(Since we now know it's a bios setting that caused the problem).
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If you can tell us the model of the motherboard
the model is P4 ASUS P4S533/pA !
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I downloaded the manual for the motherboard and nothing jumps out as causing the problem you have. :(
The only ones that might be of issue:
Ultra DMA - for the hard drive. Is this enabled (should be if you had device select set to AUTO)
USB Legacy Devices - Disabled or not
Video Memory USWC - is this set to UC (uncacheable) or USWC
Ethernet Lan Boot Rom - should be disabled
HOWEVER
Its mentioned in the bios revisions that there is a situation where XP can freeze on loading and this was fixed with Bios release 1.04. It was related to a setting in the bios that would cause the problem if set to disabled.
What revision of Bios are you running? A bios upgrade may be in order.
BTW Nice board.
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I change all this setiings but still nothing.the revision of BIOS is 1009C
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One of the other things that people have said caused freezes on startup has been the ACPI function. Disabling/Enabling this may cure your problem.
(Its in the power control part of the bios).
I'd hazard a guess that when you boot with the CD first then XP thinks it has started booting from CD-ROM and wouldn't enable the suspend to disk features etc.
BTW what happens when you boot up in safe mode? Is the last filename displayed "MUP.SYS" or suchlike? As that is the one implicated in a lot of these problems.