XP hangs at bootup

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Fid

Trying to troubleshoot my daughters PC, which won't boot.

It's an Athlon XP2500 on an MSI-KT6 board. The drive is a Maxtor SATA 120
GB. Evidently the board does not natively support SATA, and AFAIK, requires
drivers. The system hangs at bootup, with the Windows "flag" screen and
scrolling blue bar. Starting in Safe mode also hangs. She has restored a
Ghost image, but the system hangs as before.

I'll be dropping in tomorrow to check it out in person, but I desperately
need some advice as to what to check. I'll be taking along the Maxtor
diagnostics. Could it be something like a corrupt boot sector or MBR? Does
this get replaced when a Ghost image is restored?

Any and all help appreciated.
 
Trying to troubleshoot my daughters PC, which won't boot.

It's an Athlon XP2500 on an MSI-KT6 board. The drive is a Maxtor SATA 120
GB. Evidently the board does not natively support SATA, and AFAIK, requires
drivers.
Click to expand...

Ok, but was this a clean install of WinXP (or at least win2k
upgraded) so the drivers were already installed? IE- it was
running fine on this system previously, you're not trying to
do something known problematic like taking a drive with
windows installed on a different system and boot it on this
different system?

The system hangs at bootup, with the Windows "flag" screen and
scrolling blue bar. Starting in Safe mode also hangs. She has restored a
Ghost image, but the system hangs as before.
Click to expand...

Had anything happened prior to the onset of this problem?
System moved, electrical storm, suspicious OS malfunctions
(like a virus attack or general hardware instability)? Even
moving the monitor can be a problem, if the cord tugged on
the video card and dislodged it a little.

I'll be dropping in tomorrow to check it out in person, but I desperately
need some advice as to what to check.
Click to expand...


Assuming this was a working system with that OS install,
there are a lot of things that can prevent windows booting
including drive malfunction, OS corruption, virus infection,
hardware failure (motherboard, power supply, perhaps even a
CPU or PSU fan failure though probably not these latter two
if the system had been completely cold/off previously, it
would typically take longer than booting windows alone for
it to heat onto being in an instable state).
I'll be taking along the Maxtor
diagnostics. Could it be something like a corrupt boot sector or MBR?
Click to expand...

Unlikely, it's already progressed past that when windows
tries to (starts to) load.
Does
this get replaced when a Ghost image is restored?

Any and all help appreciated.
Click to expand...

Assuming the Ghost Image is intact, it would seem to be a
hardware failure. Hopefully she has a floppy drive in the
system or it can at least boot from a USB thumbdrive, then
you can put memtest86+ on that media and test the memory...
though that might be one of the last things to do since a
thorough memory test takes so long, we don't know how long
you'll be there.

A multimeter would be useful to check power supply voltages.
Examine the motherboard for failed capacitors, check that
fans are running, and while inside it might not hurt to have
cleaning tools/supplies to get rid of any dust that blocks
air passages... more of a general maintenance thing but if
you don't do it, well in my experience it wouldn't get done
by most people till there's some other problem.

A spare hard drive and OS installation disk could be used to
do a clean install or clone the Ghost image onto it. It
could also be useful for salvaging data if the drive is
failing.


Presuming the system had previously been running the OS ok,
the SATA drivers should already be present but if for some
reason you feel it's still a problem, you might take an IDE
drive instead of SATA.
 
Ok, but was this a clean install of WinXP (or at least win2k
upgraded) so the drivers were already installed? IE- it was
running fine on this system previously, you're not trying to
do something known problematic like taking a drive with
windows installed on a different system and boot it on this
different system?
Click to expand...

No, nothing had changed. She was using the same setup for about 2 years now.
Had anything happened prior to the onset of this problem?
System moved, electrical storm, suspicious OS malfunctions
(like a virus attack or general hardware instability)? Even
moving the monitor can be a problem, if the cord tugged on
the video card and dislodged it a little.
Click to expand...

Not that I'm aware of, but if the monitor cable dislodged the video card,
would the splash screen still show?
Assuming this was a working system with that OS install,
there are a lot of things that can prevent windows booting
including drive malfunction, OS corruption, virus infection,
hardware failure (motherboard, power supply, perhaps even a
CPU or PSU fan failure though probably not these latter two
if the system had been completely cold/off previously, it
would typically take longer than booting windows alone for
it to heat onto being in an instable state).


Unlikely, it's already progressed past that when windows
tries to (starts to) load.


Assuming the Ghost Image is intact, it would seem to be a
hardware failure. Hopefully she has a floppy drive in the
system or it can at least boot from a USB thumbdrive, then
you can put memtest86+ on that media and test the memory...
though that might be one of the last things to do since a
thorough memory test takes so long, we don't know how long
you'll be there.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll bring memtest along. The POST was OK however, with no odd
beeps.
A multimeter would be useful to check power supply voltages.
Examine the motherboard for failed capacitors, check that
fans are running, and while inside it might not hurt to have
cleaning tools/supplies to get rid of any dust that blocks
air passages... more of a general maintenance thing but if
you don't do it, well in my experience it wouldn't get done
by most people till there's some other problem.
Click to expand...

Good points. Thanks.
A spare hard drive and OS installation disk could be used to
do a clean install or clone the Ghost image onto it. It
could also be useful for salvaging data if the drive is
failing.
Click to expand...

I've got an old 40 Gig PATA drive and cable. Thought I'd stick them in and
see if it boots.
Presuming the system had previously been running the OS ok,
the SATA drivers should already be present but if for some
reason you feel it's still a problem, you might take an IDE
drive instead of SATA.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for a laundry list of things to check. I have a nagging
feeling it's the hard drive, but I don't know how she could've restored an
image without throwing up an error.

Will use your advice and see what shows. Again, thanks!
 
Not that I'm aware of, but if the monitor cable dislodged the video card,
would the splash screen still show?
Click to expand...

Often not, but occasionally I'll hear of someone who had a
card that seemed to marginally work in that state, right up
until about the time the OS tried to load the video card
driver. It doesn't seem as suspect as other things but it's
always good to make sure all cards, cables, etc, are
well-seated (while AC power is disconnected of course).
 
Often not, but occasionally I'll hear of someone who had a
card that seemed to marginally work in that state, right up
until about the time the OS tried to load the video card
driver. It doesn't seem as suspect as other things but it's
always good to make sure all cards, cables, etc, are
well-seated (while AC power is disconnected of course).
Click to expand...

I'll do that. Thanks again.
 
Ok, but was this a clean install of WinXP (or at least win2k
upgraded) so the drivers were already installed? IE- it was
running fine on this system previously, you're not trying to
do something known problematic like taking a drive with
windows installed on a different system and boot it on this
different system?



Had anything happened prior to the onset of this problem?
System moved, electrical storm, suspicious OS malfunctions
(like a virus attack or general hardware instability)? Even
moving the monitor can be a problem, if the cord tugged on
the video card and dislodged it a little.




Assuming this was a working system with that OS install,
there are a lot of things that can prevent windows booting
including drive malfunction, OS corruption, virus infection,
hardware failure (motherboard, power supply, perhaps even a
CPU or PSU fan failure though probably not these latter two
if the system had been completely cold/off previously, it
would typically take longer than booting windows alone for
it to heat onto being in an instable state).


Unlikely, it's already progressed past that when windows
tries to (starts to) load.


Assuming the Ghost Image is intact, it would seem to be a
hardware failure. Hopefully she has a floppy drive in the
system or it can at least boot from a USB thumbdrive, then
you can put memtest86+ on that media and test the memory...
though that might be one of the last things to do since a
thorough memory test takes so long, we don't know how long
you'll be there.

A multimeter would be useful to check power supply voltages.
Examine the motherboard for failed capacitors, check that
fans are running, and while inside it might not hurt to have
cleaning tools/supplies to get rid of any dust that blocks
air passages... more of a general maintenance thing but if
you don't do it, well in my experience it wouldn't get done
by most people till there's some other problem.

A spare hard drive and OS installation disk could be used to
do a clean install or clone the Ghost image onto it. It
could also be useful for salvaging data if the drive is
failing.


Presuming the system had previously been running the OS ok,
the SATA drivers should already be present but if for some
reason you feel it's still a problem, you might take an IDE
drive instead of SATA.
Click to expand...

Just an update - Booted to the recovery console, ran fixmbr and fixboot, and
voila.
Thanks again Kony.
 
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