Strange boot up problems Win XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Slick9
  • Start date Start date
S

Slick9

Hi all

All my boot up problems started a few days ago when I left
non-bootup disk in my a: drive by mistake and started the PC. I ru
a dual boot system: Win 98 SE & Win XP home, and when I trie
starting the PC I get hung at the "Verifying DMI pool..." message.
was able to go into the Win XP recovery console, I ran FIXBOOT fo
both my C and D (XP) drives, I then ran FIXMBR, and BOOTCFG /Defaul
and added the default OS (Win XP). I was still having problem
starting up so I reinstalled both Win XP and Win 98 over the existin
installations. I even deleted the BOOT.INI file and built a new one.
I was finally able to get to my OS startup menu and I was able t
login to my system. What followed was the bizzare part, I was abl
to restart the system several times with no problems, I was also abl
to shut the system down for a few minutes and reboot with no problem.
However, the minute I leave the system off for more than five minute
or so, I go back into startup hell, and I have to fiddle wit
FIXBOOT, FIXMBR, and BOOTCFG to get back into either XP or Win98.
have now tested this several times and whenever I am logged on to on
of the Operating Systems, I can reboot, and shutdown and start th
machine with no problem as much as I want, as long as the period tha
the machine is off is no longer than about 5 minutes, any longer an
the issues return. I thought it might be a motherboard batter
problem, however, my settings in the BIOS seem to be holding the
don't revert to the default - which is what I would expect to happe
if it was a battery problem. Long story short, I don't know what t
do at this point. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

btw: Homebuilt ri
ASUS AS8 Motherboar
2 hard drives 40 & 80 gig
 
Slick9 said:
Hi all,

All my boot up problems started a few days ago when I left a
non-bootup disk in my a: drive by mistake and started the PC. I run
a dual boot system: Win 98 SE & Win XP home, and when I tried
starting the PC I get hung at the "Verifying DMI pool..." message. I
was able to go into the Win XP recovery console, I ran FIXBOOT for
both my C and D (XP) drives, I then ran FIXMBR, and BOOTCFG /Default
and added the default OS (Win XP). I was still having problems
starting up so I reinstalled both Win XP and Win 98 over the existing
installations. I even deleted the BOOT.INI file and built a new one.
I was finally able to get to my OS startup menu and I was able to
login to my system. What followed was the bizzare part, I was able
to restart the system several times with no problems, I was also able
to shut the system down for a few minutes and reboot with no problem.
However, the minute I leave the system off for more than five minutes
or so, I go back into startup hell, and I have to fiddle with
FIXBOOT, FIXMBR, and BOOTCFG to get back into either XP or Win98. I
have now tested this several times and whenever I am logged on to one
of the Operating Systems, I can reboot, and shutdown and start the
machine with no problem as much as I want, as long as the period that
the machine is off is no longer than about 5 minutes, any longer and
the issues return. I thought it might be a motherboard battery
problem, however, my settings in the BIOS seem to be holding they
don't revert to the default - which is what I would expect to happen
if it was a battery problem. Long story short, I don't know what to
do at this point. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

btw: Homebuilt rig
ASUS AS8 Motherboard
2 hard drives 40 & 80 gigs
Click to expand...

Something associated with the HDDs or other components cooling down perhaps?
What happens if you set the HDD's to power off (using XPs Power Options) and
allow them to shut down and remain off for over the 5 minutes then move the
mouse to revive them and attempt an immediate reboot? You could also try
this with other power options to see if you can finger the culprit.

It does appear to be a complex setup you have and if the above ideas get you
nowhere, it may be helpful to bring the machine back to a basic single OS
state to see if the issue is still present. I'm surprised that you need Win
98 SE at all, given XP's excellent ability to run legacy programs in
compatibility mode.

Paul
 
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