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Hi,
Last night we had a powercut in our street, whilst my pc was on. When it booted up afterwards, at the point just before it should enters windows the pc spontaneously reboots again.
It then gives me the choice of how to start it; if I select normal mode the pc just reboots again at the same point and I can only enter my pc via safe-mode.
The pc IS plugged into a surge detector.I would greatly appreciate any advice on what the cause of this problem might be or how I can start to diagnose it from safe-mode.
Cheers,
Mark
When XP encounters an error, it automatically reboots. In the list of options, is there one to not reboot when it encounters an error.
If this happened after a storm. I would suspect a hardware issue. Most likely the power supply. What happens when you boot into safe mode?
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Ah, sorry, noticed that you are on 98SE. Again, this could be down to the power supply. Do you have a spare one you can swap?
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i don't have a spare one to test unfortunately. But it boots to safe-mode okay, which leads me to think that maybe its a bit of hardware not used in safe mode, the graphics card or something maybe?
Another strange thing that maybe relevant, since i fiddled with the hardware ages ago, when shutting down the pc it only goes to a black screen but didnt auto-close-down so I had to press the button, but now it suddenly shuts down properly.. not sure if its related.
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Power spike/surge protection is more likely to protect your computer, but it doesn't work 100% of the time, especially if the power outage was caused by lightning. Does the protector have an led that indicates the protection is still there (if it doesn't it's an el-cheapo)? Is it still lit?
If you have a better protector, they come with a warranty, and you can make a claim to replace damaged equipment connected to it if you qualify, e.g. if EVERYTHING connected to the computer is protected, including the ac connections or ac to dc adapters for everything, and the cable and/or phone line that connects you to the internet.See response 4 in this to check out your PS.
http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...You could try repeatedly pressing F8 shortly after booting to go to the Safe mode menu choices (don't hold the key down), but it may not help much.
The power outage could also have damaged the data on your hard drive, or anything on the computer for that matter.Check out your hard drive.
First part of response 5:
http://www.computing.net/windows95/...If the hard drive is physically okay, you could try an "overtop" Setup - see second part of that same response 5.
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thanks for your comments.
The surge protector is still lit, but the power failure was not due to a storm, I think a cable down the line must broke and taken a few streets out, lasting a couple of hours.
after starting up and then restarting itself before windows it automatically takes me to the "how do you want to run ur pc" menu, whereby I can get in via safe-mode.
I'll try your suggestion when I can, any further suggestions would be appreciated
Mark
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My brother had a PS fail completely after a breaker on the same circuit tripped in his own house - his computer was protected from surges/spikes. Luckily nothing else was damaged.
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If you can boot up in safe mode, I doubt if it's a power supply problem. Try a System Restore.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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that's what I thought ham30, unfortunately I don't think 98SE has a system restore facility in it, or at least I don't think mine does.
It seems strange to me that assuming a piece of hardware has failed, that windows would simply spontaneously reboot instead of displaying an error in windows, unless it is the graphics card - necessary (I presume) to run windows in 'normal mode' but not in safe mode?
Cheers,
Mark
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You can use scanreg in Win 98SE and below, but I would check your hard drive first to make sure it is physically okay, and it may not fix things an "overtop" Setup will.
Start - Run - type: command (press Enter)
type: scanreg /fix (press Enter)
Type: exit (press Enter) to return to Windows
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OOps, right Mindhead. But a scanreg /restore is 98's version of an XP system restore.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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I have run scandisk from in safe mode and it shows 0 bad sectors, is that enough to show the hardrive's okay?
Okay cool thanks I'll try the registry fix
Cheers
Mark
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PROGRESS
I ran scanreg /fix as you suggested and at 91% I received the following message was displayed:
"Windows found an error in your system files and was unable to fix the problem. Try deleting some files to free up disk space on your Windows drive. If that doesn't work then you will need to install Windows to a new directory."
So it sounds like it is definitely software related, do you think installing windows over the top of the current version will fix the problem?
Cheers,
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Try scanreg/restore instead of scanreg/fix. Choose a registry to restore with a date that precedes the problem.
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"I have run scandisk from in safe mode and it shows 0 bad sectors, is that enough to show the hardrive's okay?"
No. The hard drive diagnostics test the drive much more thuroughly, and scandisk does not test anywhere but where the data is, unless you set it to check the free space too. On the other hand, hard drives are often not damaged by power spikes/surges, even if the data on it is.
"Try deleting some files to free up disk space on your Windows drive."
If you have a reasonable amount of free space on the hard drive - if it is not nearly full - that suggestion is irrelevant.
"..do you think installing windows over the top of the current version will fix the problem?"
You could try scanreg /restore but it may not help either (note the space after scanreg).
An "overtop" Setup is worth a shot, and it takes a little less time that a Setup from scratch does. It will repair the registry, but it can't fix any problems caused by files not on the original Windows CD, or by corrupted registry entries for files not on the original Windows CD.
See the end of response 4.
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HUZZAH!!!!!
you're living legends the lot of you.
so it was the DAMN REGISTRY. I tried one and it failed but the second one did the trick.
So what have I learnt.. a damaged registry can royally screw your computer with no real hint it's the culprit. I'll remember.
Thanks for all your help guys I couldn't have done it without you.
peace
Mark
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