XP Boot up problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alan Gregory
  • Start date Start date
A

Alan Gregory

Hi,

Hope someone can help me as this one is a bit strange.

I have access to a XP Pro machine (build 2600) that was
shut down correctly last week and when I have come to use
it again it wouldn't boot up, freezing at the splash
screen immediately before you would expect the log in
screen to appear.

The PC will boot up in safe mode but switching back to a
restore point doesn't seem to have made any difference
with the PC still locking up.

The PC then after four attempts to boot up normally
started to work normally as if nothing was wrong. I have
had a trawl through the knowledge base but there doesn't
appear to be any articles about a pc freezing at that
particular point.

It's not urgent as the PC is currently working and all
critical data is backed up so if I have to do a full
install I can live with that but would rather not go down
that route unless absolutely necessary.

Does anyone have any ideas??

TIA

Al
 
The platform is currently stable. Transient things however do occur. However
it's a very false assumption that the only way to insure stability is to
arbitrarily reinstall. That never corrects a hardware problem or an
application interaction issue. In fact about the one sure way to really hose
things up is to reinstall, even clean, just because a system has a transient
issue. No telling what kind of other issues you may reintroduce or critical
patch or application you leave off on the reinstall. And if the issue
happens to be malware that is copied off into back up data, then you'll find
yourself in a rather tight cycle of format, install, reload, splat, format,
install, reload, splat.....

And there in lies the rub. Although application interaction can not be ruled
out, since things seemed to clear by itself and these events followed a
dirty shutdown with no affect on safe mode then the most likely fault is a
transient hardware issue. Which can not be corrected by doing any kind of OS
or application reinstall.

Never reinstall to correct *any* problem, especially transient, until all
other avenues of correction have been exhausted *and* all hardware has been
verified to be functional with the current set of drivers. As is, keep
backups current, do your thing and don't worry it. Just be aware that
reinstall is only required when the OS has been stomped on in a major league
way.

--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org
http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/fileversion/default.asp
 
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