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Hi, i'm a mediocre computer user with an above average knowledge of computers... But i am really stuck with this problem and i don't want to lose all my data. My problem is:
Woke up this morning and turned on my computer to find it restarts just before loading windows xp. My computer reboots even before the "Windows XP loading" logo appears. When i attempt to go into safe mode, it shows a few lines of files being loaded then, just like loading windows normally, my computer reboots again. So i'm stuck not knowing what to do.
I have reason to believe that this might be caused by the motorola cell phone/data transfer drivers i've installed the previous night because that is the last thing i did to the computer that involved the core of the system. System restore could easily fix this, but i cannot even get into windows through safe mode.
I've booted with the windows xp pro cd and used the recovery console to check the file integrity and it is fine.
I've also booted with, on the same computer, my other HDD containing windows XP Pro from my working computer and it boots up fine.
This eliminates the possibilities of the problem being a hardware issue.
Can somebody please help me? Is there a way to delete the drivers i've recently intalled through dos or anything? Will that even remedy the problem..? The last thing i would want to do is format my computer because there are valuable school documents.
Any suggestions welcome. Thank you very much.
When you say that "I've booted with the windows xp pro cd and used the recovery console to check the file integrity and it is fine", does this mean that you ran a "CHKDSK /R" from the recovery console?
If not, I think that would be the best next step.
Post back if you've already tried that and I'll show you how to replace the five "hive" files with their backups from the recovery console.
Musky
If the voices inside my head paid rent, I'd be rich!
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Yes i've used the "chkdsk /r" from recovery console. Please let me know how to replace the hives if that's the only way. Thank you very much for reading
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Actually this knowledge base article explains it better then I can. Skip down to "Step one" and start there. You won't need to do "Step two" if you just want to recover data, but step two will allow you to restore your registry to a more up to date version after you do the fix in step one:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
Musky
If the voices inside my head paid rent, I'd be rich!
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Hi, I have just tried this method that you've generously proposed and it did not work ... The only difference was that it rebooted even quicker than previously. Before when i pressed enter on "start windows normally" i would see a small white progession bar at the bottom of my screen and once it filled, my computer restarted right away. After i did what you've suggested, this bar didn't show but instead my computer rebooted right after i hit the enter button on "start windows normally". I've tried going to system restore too and it seems to have restarted after around 10 or 15 ish lines one ending at mup.sys or something. It was too quick for me to read. Your efforts are deeply appreciated. Is there any other method that i can try out?
Any help is appreciated. Thank you
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I think you're next step is to do a "repair" installation of Windows. Once you get to the blue menu screen, instead of choosing the recovery console, go ahead and choose to install Windows.
It will then show you the Windows installation that is currently on the hard drive and give you the option to repair this installation. Choose that. It will then replace ALL the system files leaving your data intact (most of the time) :)
If that doesn't work, then you definitely have a hardware problem, perhaps the hard drive itself is toast.
Good luck!
Musky
If the voices inside my head paid rent, I'd be rich!
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Actually I made a mistake in my description. It might just be a hardware problem because i just slipped in another hard drive, once again, to see if windows will boot up on my windows xp pro from my other computer's hard drive and the same rebooting happened. In my description i said that i used another HDD and it worked, that was only because it didn't start up with the menu "Last known good configuration, Safe mode, etc".
My hard drive is definately working.
Now i'm just wondering... What may the problem be? Here are the the things i've tried:
Tried all modes including: safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last known good method, and start windows normally.
While watching safe mode load, i can conclude, by using pause/break, that the system restarts around AFTER loading mup or agp440.
Disabled mostly EVERY BOOT service, except for the essential ones of course, with recovery console. Still rebooted
checked file integrity with chkdsk /r.
Repair the hive files.
After doing all these with no luck, of course i placed all the backups back and decided i'll try to fiddle with the hardware. So i continued:
Swap each device including HDD, CDDVD combo drive, PCI devices including sound card, modem, network card, and video card.
Doing these things i can conclude that it's not a device conflict.Put in a different HDD with winXP from other computer. Still no luck
The only thing that i can think of as my only options left to save my computer is to flash/update the bios, and to swap the memory ram around. But i doubt swapping the ram around would do anything since i'm not getting a page fault or BSOD before the reboots...
But before i try these things. Is there anything else that i've missed that i can do with my hardware to fix my problem?
Please someone help me and thanks a lot to Musky for all the help so far.
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If the hard drive you "slipped in" to the system did not have the XP installation that was installed with the motherboard and hardware that is now in the system, you most likely will not be able to boot up to it. Because that Windows installation knows nothing about the drivers and hardware settings of that system. So that isn't a valid test.
Try the repair install that I outlined above.
Musky
If the voices inside my head paid rent, I'd be rich!
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Hi, thank you for correcting me. The repair method sounds good but i am not sure if it will leave all my preferences intact =/
Well, i've finally done what i should have done a long time ago, i've taken out the hard drive and connected it to my other computer, I can see all my files and i can see that my hard drive is working perfectly fine. Is there any way i can find out what exactly is causing my computer to reboot and edit it from this computer since i can see all my files including the system files here? I do not want to have to do all my preferences again because i customized and personalized my desktop a lot and... basically i just want my computer to be back to normal. Thanks again Musky
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You really shouldn't lose any of your personal settings during a repair. Your bookmarks and others should remain intact. All the repair does is replace the system files.
Since you already tried replacing the hive files without success, there is not much else you can do from "outside" the drive aside from running some Virus and malware scans, but I don't think that is your problem.
I'm curious though. You said you did replace the hive files and then you said you did a system restore afterward. How did you do a restore if you couldn't boot into Windows?
Also, have you tried a "fixboot" command from the recovery console?
Musky
If the voices inside my head paid rent, I'd be rich!
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Well, i didn't really do a system restore. Using the computer i'm currently on, i accessed my hard drive and got into the restore folders. Within the restore folders i've taken out the System and Software hive and over written the ones currently residing in the c:\windows\system32\config folder. That's probably what i mean't by system restore. I really wish i can do the real system restore.
Also, I haven't tried the fixboot command. Can you please let me know what it does exactly and can you please let me know when i do a repair on my windows, can i use my old restore points?
Just to make sure nothing goes wrong, i'm waiting until i buy a new Hard drive so i can clone the contents of this one using norton ghost. This way i can experiment with trying to get it to work using every method left. I'm going to hold off the repair windows method until i get that new hard drive which will be some time this week. The repair method sounds to be the only one that will work.
Thank you Musky
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