[Vae62]

This is a problem that began occurring...about 20 minutes ago. There was a power surge that caused a restart of my computer, when I tried to start up XP, everything would be fine until I reached the account log-in screen. I am able to log-in and Windows starts to boot up, wallpaper comes up, along with the start button, icons on desktop, etc. But after about 45 seconds it stops booting up and freezes, no BSOD, it just freezes. Also, when I try to run check disk upon restarting the computer it constantly freezes at 19%, every time. I am unable to boot up in Safe Mode as it freezes there as well. Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.

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Is your computer plugged into any surge protector?

[Broni]

Is your computer plugged into any surge protector?

[Vae62]

Yes it is.

[Broni]

Same for "Last known good configuration"?

[Vae62]

Um if that means it is the same one, yes. I figured it could be an HDD problem, but my knowledge of hardware isn't that great.

[Broni]

No, what I'm saying, when you get to F8 options, beside "Safe Mode", there is "Last known good configuration" option.
Did you try it?

[Vae62]

Oh sorry. Yes the same thing happens, gets about halfway booted up then freezes at the same spot as before.

[Broni]

Well, there is no simple answer here.
I'd say, it may be just Windows problems since its session was terminated by power cut off.

If you have Windows CD...(if you don't have Windows CD, scroll down)

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:



3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number 1).
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:



4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair your problem..
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -R C:\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild

Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:



5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.



If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomput...om/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free Imgburn: http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Using Imgburn, burn rc.iso to a CD.
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.

[Vae62]

After performing those steps and resetting the boot.ini, the problem still exists. However, rather than freezing partway through the bootup after I login as before, it now fully boots up, but freezes about 1 minute after it is done doing so.

Also, when I start up the computer I am given a prompt to select where I want to boot from, the newly created Windows XP Home Edition(the one I created from the recovery console), or the old one Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. Is this prompt normal after following those steps? Booting from the new one results in a full bootup, but once again it freezes about a minute after it loads. Thanks for your help so far, any further suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.

[Vae62]

An interesting note here, I didn't try this last night as it was 3am when I finished with the boot.ini steps, but I can now boot up the computer in safe mode. I was unable to do that before.

[Broni]

when I start up the computer I am given a prompt to select where I want to boot from, the newly created Windows XP Home Edition(the one I created from the recovery console), or the old one Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

This, we can easily eliminate.
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
Under System Startup, click Edit. This will open boot.ini file in Notepad.
Copy all content, and post it in your next reply.

I can now boot up the computer in safe mode

Some progress
What happens, when you try normal mode?

[Vae62]

Here is the boot.ini file in notepad:

[boot loader]
timeout = 30
default = multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

When I try to run it normally through the new boot.ini it starts up as it normally did prior to the power surge. But it freezes when the antivirus tries to load, all other icons pop up and I am actually able to access files and folders before it tries to load it. Before it would freeze up before I was able to do anything.

[Broni]

Which option from these two, gets you with no problem to safe mode:
multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

[Vae62]

The top one does. The bottom one prevents check disk from running and does not allow me to enter safe mode. The top one is the one that I set from the steps that you provided.

[Broni]

OK, reopen boot.ini and delete second line:
multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
Go File>Save
Restart computer.

While in Safe Mode...

Go Start>Run (Start Search in Vista), type in:
msconfig
Click OK (hit Enter in Vista).

Click on Startup tab.
Click Disable all
IMPORTANT! In case of laptop, make sure, you do NOT disable any keyboard, or touchpad entries.

Click Services tab.
Put checkmark in Hide all Microsoft services
Click Disable all.

Click OK.
Restart computer in Normal Mode.

NOTE. If you use different firewall, than Windows firewall, turn Windows firewall on, just for this test, since your regular firewall won't be running.
If you use Windows firewall, you're fine.

Same problem?