Re: Sudden Bootup failure.

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"Anna" <myname@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"TerryS." <maildrop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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After doing a clean reinstall of XP Pro SP2 as well as the latest
versions
of my necessary basic softwares I had a reliable and stable OS.
Four months later, of all of a sudden the bootup fails to a black screen
with the blinking cursor and a message to put in an installation disc.

Hitting the reboot button and the F8 key gets me: Boot Menu/select boot
drive/Enter.....for a perfect boot and session performance. But this is
becoming tedious.

The boot up fails after the initial drive search including the floppy
drive
that's installed (yeah yeah I know) and that I still use occasionally.
I did use it recently and it was several days before I noticed that I had
left a floppy in the drive. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure my
boot
up problem started after I removed the floppy disc.

I do run two SATA drives with the boot partition on the primary drive.
The BIOS bootup is set to boot from HDD as it has always been.
Floppy bootup and check are disabled in the BIOS.

Can I repair the bootup sequence?
Any other knowledge and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
TerryS.


Terry:
While it's conceivable a hardware issue might be involved here, it's
reasonable to suspect this might be nothing more than a corrupted OS
that's preventing a straightaway boot to your system.
A more than reasonable reasonable suspicion on your part Anna........I too
suspected.
It was sudden and out of the blue.

I'm assuming that in that four-month period starting from the time you
fresh-installed the XP OS and during which, as you state, you had a
perfectly bootable & functional system with no problems - you did not make
any configuration or other hardware/software changes that you think might
have caused your present problem(s).
Ummm......well I errr....I do have inspirational curiosity in computerous
doings.

And that the system is free of any malware that might be implicated.
I have run a clean operation on and off the web for several years but I did
run an updated SpyBot search on reading this.
It never usually picks anything up, but it did find a file it did not like,
some HBO.
I pressed the "fix" button without recording details of the bug.

I'm assuming this is a desktop PC, yes? Assuming you're comfortable with
getting inside your desktop's case and have some familiarity with
components, what happens when you disconnect the floppy disk drive from
the system? Same problem?
Did that one too....didn't seem to make a difference at the time.

The problem could be nothing more than a mildly corrupted OS that's
preventing a normal boot. Have you considered running a Repair install of
the OS? (I'm assuming this is not an OEM machine where only a recovery
process would be available, i.e., you have at your disposal either a
non-branded OEM or full retail copy of the XP OS installation CD).

Have you run the sfc /scannow and/or the chkdsk /r commands to determine
whether they might correct the problem, assuming the problem is software
(OS) related?
Anna

I have followed up all of the suggestions from yourself and another helpful
poster (see my exchange with Gerry) and something has worked.
I finally got a normal bootup and several more faultless reboots.
We're back on deck. I am not sure how.
Thank you for your input Anna.

Regards,
TerryS.


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