Computer booting trouble

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CompWiz
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Computer booting trouble

Post by CompWiz »

I've run into a problem getting my computer to boot. For some reason, XP just decided to stop working. I've tried all of the normal steps that should be able to get the computer working. Here's what I've done:

1: Last good configuration boot
2: safe mode, system restore
3: rebuild boot.ini
4: fix master boot record
5: in place reinstall of windows(repair install)
6: ran checkdisk
6: disconnected the extra hard drive I had in my computer

Basically, when I turn it on, it shows the windows loading screen, then the screen goes black, and it just stays that way.

Unfortunately, since I did the windows repair install, it now won't let me even boot into safe mode, saying that the "setup can't finish in safe mode" or something like that.

I haven't installed any software during the last couple of times I was working on my computer and I haven't changed the hardware. I don't know why Windows is doing this.

Does anyone have any idea of what I could do to try to fix it? Thanks.

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tr1p1ea
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Post by tr1p1ea »

How long have you let it sit there as a blank screen for? Have you tried leaving it for a few hours?

It could be a piece of hardware chucking a fit and windows isnt liking it. You could try disconnecting all peripherals, using minimal RAM etc.

When you did a system restore, how far back did you go? You could try a manual system restore to an even earlier point perhaps?
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Post by Dwedit »

Boot to a different operating system (such as Knoppix), rename "windows", "documents and settings", and "program files" to different names.
There is no legitimate reason to ever wipe a hard drive to troubleshoot windows.
Then do a clean install of windows. If you need to restore parts of your old registry, you can use an Offiline Registry Hive Viewer to access your old registry.
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Post by benryves »

Dwedit wrote:Boot to a different operating system (such as Knoppix), rename "windows", "documents and settings", and "program files" to different names.
There is no legitimate reason to ever wipe a hard drive to troubleshoot windows.
The Vista installer (not sure about XP) moves those directories into Windows.old when you install over an existing installation. At least, it moved Windows, Program Files and Users there; not sure about the Documents directory as I keep that on a separate drive anyway.
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Post by King Harold »

The vista installer pretty much killed my computer, for a while at least until i reanimated it with a XP cd.
I was thinking about giving vista yet an other chance and I wanted to some concrete statistics (benchmarks from own computer) but that obviously failed. The vista installed managed to compress bootmgr. And it didn't want to be fixed the way that you'd find by searching for it on google - repair-installing XP worked (although I had to re-register Daemon Tools pro and re-patch uxtheme)
So no damage done, but it took half a day! Not nice!

maybe repair-installing XP would solve this problem as well?
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Post by CompWiz »

tr1p1ea wrote:How long have you let it sit there as a blank screen for? Have you tried leaving it for a few hours?
yes, I have.
tr1p1ea wrote:It could be a piece of hardware chucking a fit and windows isnt liking it. You could try disconnecting all peripherals, using minimal RAM etc.
Well, I'll give that a shot.
tr1p1ea wrote:When you did a system restore, how far back did you go? You could try a manual system restore to an even earlier point perhaps?
I think I only tried restoring from the day before. Unfortunately, ever since I did the repair install of XP, it refuses to boot into safe mode, saying that setup can't finish in safe mode. Is there any way to do a system restore without going into safe mode?
King Harold wrote:maybe repair-installing XP would solve this problem as well?
Well, like I said in my first post, I've already tried doing a repair install. Unfortunately, doing a repair install has made it so that I can no longer run safe mode, since for some reason it says that setup can't finish in safe mode. :x
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Post by kalan_vod »

Take out you hard drive and copy the files (using a caddy or making it a slave in another pc), and then do a clean install.
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Post by King Harold »

CompWiz wrote:
King Harold wrote:maybe repair-installing XP would solve this problem as well?
Well, like I said in my first post, I've already tried doing a repair install. Unfortunately, doing a repair install has made it so that I can no longer run safe mode, since for some reason it says that setup can't finish in safe mode. :x
oh I see now, I must have kinda skipped over that line last time..

Anyway, does the XP repair-console work? (ok I probably missed something again)

or maybe your harddisk is very close to dieing?
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Post by benryves »

You can run an offline system restore from the boot CD (ie, you do not have to boot Windows itself to run the restore).
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Post by Timendus »

Step A: Either get a LiveCD or put your harddisk in a working PC, and back your data up
Step B: Get yourself a proper OS and do a clean install (or do a clean install of XP if you insist :?)
Step C: Restore your data

It's not about the PC. Nor the OS. It's about what you do with it, and hence about your personal data. If the PC or the OS screws up, get rid of it and replace it with something that gets the work done. It's your data that needs saving. Many people fail to see this point, including Microsoft, which is why many people try to protect their OS from virusses and the likes. But what's the use of not being able to change the WINDOWS folder or the registry if you still lose your personal data when you get infected..?

Of course it can be a pain to have to install all your software over again, which shows the importance of keeping all the installers in a centralized place (for Windows) or keeping a list of installed packages (for Linux). The advantage of the latter is that you can keep the list in the form of a shell script that does "apt-get install" on each of them, so you just have to do a fresh install, let the script run, and when you come back you're good to go. On Windows you still need to click through each individual installer.
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Post by benryves »

Timendus wrote:On Windows you still need to click through each individual installer.
You could in theory do the same using the Windows package system (MSI), "msiexec /i package.msi /qn". However most installers do not use the built in functionality and so, yes, require a manual installation.
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Post by CoBB »

Timendus wrote:The advantage of the latter is that you can keep the list in the form of a shell script that does "apt-get install" on each of them, so you just have to do a fresh install, let the script run, and when you come back you're good to go.
Is there any point in doing that? If I’m working with a freshly installed Linux, I just apt-get everything as I need them, as it takes virtually no effort. No need to litter your new system with old stuff you haven’t touched for a while. The only thing you need is take notes about non-straightforward installs, but that’s typically more than just a few relevant package names (e.g. config options or files, or a series of commands). Writing little howtos for future reference can never hurt.
benryves wrote:You could in theory do the same using the Windows package system (MSI), "msiexec /i package.msi /qn". However most installers do not use the built in functionality and so, yes, require a manual installation.
It’s only part of the problem, and the easier to solve part in fact, since there’s hardly anything in the way of creating non-interactive installers. The lack of large package repositories with dependency handling is what’s painfully missing from the Windows world. As a Debian user all I need to do is add some of the well-known repositories (e.g. debian-multimedia) besides the core stuff, and I have countless applications at my fingertips that I can install and remove easily. Oh, and automatically installed packages not used by anyone any more (like dependencies of something I just uninstalled) can also be swept out with no effort. This makes deployment extremely simple for the developer too, since all you need to do is specify the dependencies of your application when you package it, and the user will get everything. No need for monolithic bundles or making your users dig through the web.

One beautiful example of a mature package system I’ve seen under Windows is that of MiKTeX, which can install packages required by a certain document on the fly while typesetting, without any intervention.
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Post by CompWiz »

King Harold wrote:
CompWiz wrote:
King Harold wrote:maybe repair-installing XP would solve this problem as well?
Well, like I said in my first post, I've already tried doing a repair install. Unfortunately, doing a repair install has made it so that I can no longer run safe mode, since for some reason it says that setup can't finish in safe mode. :x
oh I see now, I must have kinda skipped over that line last time..

Anyway, does the XP repair-console work? (ok I probably missed something again)
yes, that works. That's how I rebuilt boot.ini and the master boot record.
King Harold wrote:or maybe your harddisk is very close to dieing?
I suppose that's possible.

Also, like tr1p1ea suggested, I pulled everything out except the graphics card and CPU. I even swapped the ram out for different stuff. Still, it has the same problem.

benryves: how do I do that?

I'm really hoping that I don't have to just copy over the data and start with a fresh OS install. I had a lot of programs installed, with a lot of specific settings etc... that would take a long time to restore. But, if nothing else works, there is always that.

thanks for all the suggestions so far. :)
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Post by Timendus »

CompWiz wrote:I'm really hoping that I don't have to just copy over the data and start with a fresh OS install. I had a lot of programs installed, with a lot of specific settings etc... that would take a long time to restore. But, if nothing else works, there is always that.
Ah, yes, that's another of those things that I tend to forget about Windows. Your settings are all stored in random places, as determined by the application, and have to be changed through the GUI. In the Linux world settings are always text files (so you can change them by hand if needed, and copy them or back them up) and are always stored in your own home directory (Linux equivalent of "My documents"). So unless you've got some system wide applications with specific settings running (in which case you'd have to look in /etc/something to find the config file), you can just back your home directory up, reinstall OS + applications, and copy your home directory back in place...

@CoBB: You're right, which is why I don't currently keep such a list, but one could, in sharp contrast with Windows. And I think I'm going to write a script one of these days that installs all the add-ons that you'd expect to be there on a bare Ubuntu installation (Flash support, all codecs, Skype, proper FTP client, VLC media player, proprietary video drivers, etc) but that need some user interaction for legal or ethical reasons, because I keep installing these things over and over again each time I install Ubuntu for someone. Also, the flash-nonfree package is currently broken, so it needs human intervention to get enabled in Firefox, as does the video driver often... I'm getting fed up with those procedures... ;) I think I'll throw the Firestarter firewall in as well, just to make people feel more secure... Windows users keep asking me "where's the firewall and virus scanner?" and it's often easier to just give it to them than to explain about security by design, social engineering, browser holes, the different kernel API...
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