Re: Emachines win xp home Sp1 boot loop

From: André Cruz (andre.cruz_at_sapo.pt)
Date: 09/22/04 

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:55:55 +0100

Hello,

If you have an original XP CD (not the oem cd) you can do a repair... boot
from CD... then choose to install, after this windows installation will
detect that you already have one installation, you can then choose repair
installation and it will keep everything that you have on disk... just be
sure if your XP sticker says it's an OEM license to get an XP OEM CD but
from Microsoft itself not the Emachine OEM CD... normally the OEM CD's from
manufacter companies have changed settings.

"kmhafer" <kmhafer@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5F1A30F0-76F1-4F0B-AC7A-AE46155157FF@microsoft.com...
> I'm stuck in the xp boot loop from hell. No specific error messages, just
> won't bring up xp!
>
> One of our 4 computers is an Emachines 900mhz celeron box mostly used for
> our kids games, running OEM winxp home SP1, updates current to 7/19/04,
> and
> MacAfee AV 8 as well as spybot and spywareblaster. No recent hardware or
> software changes. We just shipped the box UPS in the original packing
> cross
> country when we returned from sabbatical. I unpacked it all, and it
> worked
> fine for a week. Then my son turned it off by pushing the power button.
> It
> started up fine, but then wouldn't recognize the CD-ROM. (or maybe it was
> the CD-ROM prob 1st, then the power-off). Upon re-booting, we get the
> black
> winxp flag screen with the green dots for 5 secs, then the Emachines logo
> white screen, then the "windows was not shut down properly...please choose
> one of the options" screen.
>
> The machine won't boot with ANY of the options. No safe mode, normal
> boot,
> LNG, etc. I tried f8 as well, but no luck booting from here either. I
> can't
> get past the "windows was not shut down properly" screen. When I choose
> safemode, I DO get a list of all the .sys files displayed on screen as
> part
> of the boot loop. I tried using an xp boot disk I made on another machine
> (xp pro SP2 with floppy containing basic boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and
> ntldr.ini), but that didn't work. Maybe I need a bootdisk made from an XP
> home machine? I went into BIOS setup and all seems ok. The boot sequence
> goes thru my CD-ROM, then floppy, and HDD, and even the HDD light comes
> on.
>
> I'll pop the box open and re-seat all cables and memory and blow out any
> dust tonight. Maybe the UPS trip unseated something? But assuming this
> isn't the problem:
>
> All I have is the EMachines OEM restore CD-ROM which will likely wipe the
> HDD and do a fresh install. Before going that far, I'd like to at least
> try
> to back up some personal stuff off the drive 1st. And I'd like to back
> up
> the registry, WPA, etc. But I can't get into the drive to do anything!
>
> Can I read the HDD as a slave in a Win98SE machine? XP Pro machine? so I
> can back it up first?
>
> Can I "borrow" a friend's XP Home CD and try an xp home repair install
> (not
> a recovery console)?
>
> Should I buy a new HDD and use the OEM CD-ROM to do a fresh xp home
> install
> on it and then do all the updates and try using my old HDD as a slave?
>
> Or should I just cave in and pay the professionals to diagnose and fix or
> at
> least recover the important stuff from the HDD?
>
> Thanks in advance for all your suggestions! My kids want their games
> back.
>
> -Kurt
>