XP Boot problems

galehickey · April 1st, 2005, 03:12 AM

Have WINXP. Attempted to boot the pc and got as far as the splash screen when I heard a "click" and the pc went dead - came up again by itself and "click" - down it went again. Sounds like a reset switch clicking. Tried going into safemode but the same thing. Any suggestions? Thanks.

rhetoricsdead · April 1st, 2005, 03:31 AM

sounds like a dead hd. maybe the voltage on the cpu

jrsweger · April 1st, 2005, 04:08 AM

It's possible you have a missing or corrupt start up file. Take a look at this article, it may help: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...c_str_reii.asp You may be able to use the recovery console to fix this.

Michael Chiew · April 1st, 2005, 07:45 AM

It's quite likely that you have a hardware problem, especially since you still experience the same switching on and off situation after running in Safe Mode.

Not likely to be a missing or corrupt start up file as indicated by jrsweger. In Safe Mode, a few system files are activated.

When did this start to happen? Some system specs might help. Is it a system you yourself have assembled.

Did you move the computer from one location to another before it occurred. A sudden movement might have jerked some component slightly out of position, thereby causing a repetition of the event you are faced with. Could be a faulty power supply, or something loose on the motherboard, an improperly seated standoff, for example, could be the culprit. The CPU is capable of causing this, too.

Shed some light on what went on just before the occurrence, galehickey.

Michael Chiew

jrsweger · April 1st, 2005, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Chiew

It's quite likely that you have a hardware problem, especially since you still experience the same switching on and off situation after running in Safe Mode.

Not likely to be a missing or corrupt start up file as indicated by jrsweger. In Safe Mode, a few system files are activated.

Michael Chiew

I have to disagree! I just fixed one that had the same problem and there was not a hardware defect with the computer. Some of the startup files (not just sure which one) was bad (assuming corrupted). I used the recovery console to replace the suspected files.

galehickey · April 1st, 2005, 12:28 PM

What I have done as of late. I had an image from Norton's Ghost 2003 saved in an external hard drive. I formatted my HD and reinstalled WIN XP. New windows xp minus my programs and data naturally. Installed Ghost 2003 on my new installation and then replaced the new windows with my saved image. The system attempted to boot but stopped when a message came up "Load ERROR!"
PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT. The image was created last week so it is current as far as no new hardware has been added. At the time the trouble started I was fixing to do a CHKDSK. Before I do this I always do a Disk Cleanup. This is when the pc froze. And the problems started. Doing a clean install and bringing over an image that had been working has got me. Can't think of anything else that would cause problems.

jrsweger · April 1st, 2005, 05:00 PM

If the image was a complete backup of your old drive, can't you boot from the Ghost CD and re-image your drive from that? I haven't gotten that deep into Ghost, so I'm not sure.

galehickey · April 1st, 2005, 05:12 PM

Ghost 2003 has two boot floppies for moving the image back to the c: drive. I know that the image has been extracted because Partition Majic indicates so. Something is stopping the system from "loading" - again the image I created was working and I have a new installation of windows. There is something I am doing wrong with Nortons. Has to be.

galehickey · April 1st, 2005, 05:42 PM

PS - aside from everthing else what kinda message is "ERROR LOADING!"
The exclamation mark comes with it. Generally an error references some place to start looking. Dunno 'bout this one.

jrsweger · April 2nd, 2005, 12:41 AM

About the only thing I can think of is that there is something wrong in the MBR, partition table or something like that. I guess at this point I don't have an answer other than once you partition your drive, load Windows, etc., the MBR and the rest are all setup then you make an attempt to write over them with the image which may be messing them up. Have you tried booting from a GHOST boot disk and re-imaging from there?