Re: XP loops to reboot when almost fully up

A repair install does not usually take a lot of time and is likely the next step for recovery. All of the data should be safe, but you should have a current backup of anything critical.

How Do I Do a "Repair Installation"?:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm

--

Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User


"Pizzafoundry" <eno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1159652205.418719.215950@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oh boy, another stupid XP problem...

XP, SP2, doesn't visit bad/infected sites, mostly used for college
coursework & email by the wife who is a certified support engineer as
well.

System ran perfectly up to Wednesday night when it was put to bed with
the usual hibernate command.

Next boot in the morning, the system seemed to come back as normal, but
when it finally started putting the icons back on the desktop (where it
is pretty much ready to go), it got about 4 columns of icons up, and
then immediately blackscreens and reboots. It will now do this over
and over if you let it, though future attempts pause for 15 minutes
while it does the chkdsk prior to continuing to boot.

Safe mode boot ALWAYS hangs at amdagp.sys forever, UNLESS you have
first done a chkdsk/r either on another system, or from recovery
console boot.

Setting to VGA mode fails same way, icons almost up, then boom,
blackscreen, reboot.

After a lengthy chkdsk/r which generally takes 45 minutes (160g disk
1/2 full), system can be safe booted; doing this, we have system
restored back to two weeks ago, but still have same issue after
restore.

One other oddity: ONLY after the chkdsk/r is done, if you try, it WILL
successfully boot normally, all the way through with all icons up,
processes starting, antivirus update happens, etc. Then it responds
normally. If you then immediately do a normal shutdown, power off,
then power back on to reboot, boom, back to the failure mode again,
which now of course continues until the NEXT time you chkdsk/r for 45
minutes first before trying anything else.

We also tried: chkdsk/r first, then ghosted to another known-good 160g
drive. Same exact pattern as described above... i.e. will boot
correctly ONCE (only after chkdsk/r), and then subsequent reboots
always fail with the loop described above.

When it is hung on the safe boot attempts, it always shows amdagp.sys
as the last item loaded, and the disk led is solid on for as long as
you want to watch it. However, if you have just chkdsk/r'ed, now the
safe boot will go through, after pausing at amdagp.sys for 38 seconds.

We swapped in different video card, removed all other cards, installed
different memory, defaulted bios, tried different power supply,
unplugged everything but keyboard. No hardware changes affect the
problem; the only thing we've found to affect it is the chkdsk/r
procedure. We even have a 2nd identical machine to this one (both
Compaq Presario 7000), tried the hard drive in it, and get same
failure, so it really doesn't feel like ANYTHING to do with the
hardware at this point.

System also had a Win2000 disk in it which, when selected, boots up
2000 normally and uneventfully.

Ring any bells? Boy, this is frustrating. No new software was
installed, no changes to system
were made that final night before, nothing; it has been being used this
way each evening for the past couple of week as she's in a new set of
online classes and just doing the homework each night. I pressed her
for SOMETHING she must have done to change things; no such change.
I can't believe we'll have to fool around with recovery install to fix
this... but can find no real clues after a LOT of googling...

tia


.

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