Re: Can't boot XP Home PC


Neil,

It may be that you are between a rock and a hard place. It may be possible to repair the OS with a disk from another pc **BUT** the manufacturer's repair disk may contain modified programs that such a repair would overwrite. You **MAY** end up in a bigger mess. That's the rock.

The hard place is that the manufacturers recovery disk is likely to wipe everything on the disk and restore it to factory configuration, so you lose all your data.

The only way out, unless someone else has a bright idea is to find someone who can rescue the data on the disk for you, maybe to CD or DVD, then you can use the manufacturers disk to restore the system, and bring back your data from the CD. Even then you will lose all programs that you might have installed since you got the machine.

If you are confident with computers and their entrails, you could take out the hard disk, connect it to another machine and recover the data yourself.

Cheers,

Cliff

Neil wrote:
Anna

Thanks for your reply, what you say makes sense to me.

I don't have a Windows XP Home disk as Windows came pre-installed on my system. I do have a system restore disk, but I fear that using that would restore my PC to original install and would lose all data and installed programs.

I do have a Windows XP Home install disk from one of my other PCs. Can I use that to run the repair that you describe?

Thanks again

Neil


"Anna" <myname@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OgfiE2kZGHA.3752@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Neil" wrote:


I've got a severe problem with my home PC. It's an oldish HP Pavilion 740.
There were no hardware changes before this problem occurred, but it was
about the time of the last Microsoft automatic Windows upgrade. I ran a
memory test from a floppy diskette for several hours with no sign of error
so I don't think it's a memory problem.

When switched on, the HP invent screen is displayed followed by a blank
screen with a progress bar across the bottom. Then the Windows XP Home full
screen splash screen with green progress bar is displayed followed by a
blank screen with arrow cursor. After this a Window appears with "Please
wait" "Windows is starting up". Following another blank screen, the system
reboots and starts again.

If I try to load in safe mode, I get a black screen with "Safe Mode"
displayed in all 4 corners and ""Microsoft (R) WinXP (R) (Build
2600.XPSP1.020828-1920). This is followed by the "Windows is starting up"
window, then the system reboots. Sometimes, the system asks which OS I wish
to use - and it offers just MS Win Whistler Personal, and I may get a long
list of drivers as they are loaded (finishing with AGP440.sys).

Trying debugging mode or VGA mode or safe mode with command prompt just goes
through the process to the reboot.

My daughter has some schoolwork on the system that she really needs, so I'm
hoping there is a way of recovering the situation without a full restore.
Can anyone help please.

TIA

Neil


"Byte" <Byte@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:2C55226B-8D13-4F2E-9ED7-F9B36726EBC1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I believe the answer is in your question. You state a "green" progress
bar is displayed. Well, if you are running WindowsXP with SP2, the
progress bar is "blue". You very likely do not have SP2 installed.
Order Windows XP Service Pack 2 on CD (it is FREE)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx
--
XP - WNP
Today is the first day of the
rest of your life.


"Neil" <n.hall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OqJCzakZGHA.2376@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks for your answer, I think you are right and I don't have SP2 installed - the fact that Windows displays "Build 2600.XPSP1.020828-1920" tends to back that up.

However, I still don't understand why not having SP2 installed would stop the PC from booting. I also don't understand how I'll be able to install SP2 when I can't boot the PC - does SP2 come on a CD that includes a bootable version of Windows?

Thanks for your help.

Neil

Neil:
It's hard, if not impossible, to tell precisely what is causing your problem based on the description of the situation. It may be hardware-based or software-based. But installing SP2 *at this time* is *not* the answer to your problem. We must first find out what is causing the problem and correct it. Then, and only then, should you install SP2, which *is* a desirable thing to do. But *only* after you have a bootable, functioning operating system.

At this point I think it would be advisable for you to run a Repair install of your XP OS. Hopefully, assuming the problem is just one of system files corruption, the Repair install should bring the system back to a functional state. You use your XP installation CD to undertake the Repair install. It's all pretty straightforward. No complicated commands are involved. You boot to the CD and (hopefully) you'll come to an opening screen that, in effect, asks what do you want to do. Unfortunately, one of the options refers to a "repair" installation involving the Recovery Console. (Why MS used that terminology at this point is incomprehensible) - the important point is that you DO NOT select that option. Just remember that.

Select the "setup XP now" option by pressing Enter. Eventually a screen will display a Repair option and that's the one you select. The repair install process begins...

You can get more details re undertaking the Repair install by doing a Google search on "xp repair install". You'll be directed to a number of websites that contain detailed information on the process.

If the Repair install doesn't correct the process, we go on to further exploration.
Anna




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