 | Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years. Thanks, CNET Support |
Today, when the XP boot screen appeared after post, my machine rebooted. Went to MSKB and followed instructions for Recovery Console, but when I got to the money shot, I was denied access - tried this 4 times, same response. Tried repair install, but after drivers loaded and auto re-boot, XP boot screen appeared and machine rebooted...vicious cycle.
Is there a solution to this? MSKB says its a 32.dll issue, but maybe not in this case?
Discussion is locked
- after Windows drivers load, XP boot screen appears, then auto reboot occurs.
One other thing...I went into BIOS after the first volley of reboots just to see if something had changed and discover that the cpu id was different than it had been. I reset it to the proper model number, but this hasn't altered anything.
When you boot up in safe mode by typing the F8 key repeatedly after the BIOS POST test until the Boot Menu screen(black w/white text)appears and then have chosen 'Safe Mode' as the boot option, and after you see the drivers list being completed(white text on black background), there should be a waiting interval of 20 to 40 seconds at which point the Safe Mode loggon screen will appear with reduced pixel and color resolution. The familiar XP bootup splash screen(Microsoft Windows XP logo w/animated progress bar, green for SP1, and blue for SP2 and Professional) will not appear at all; If it does, that means your system boot options in the registry (SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/...) have been corrupted or your BOOT.INI file is damaged.
You mentioned that your CPU ID had changed. If your computer's BIOS chip has been damaged, this will prevent XP from getting to its hardware. This is because the drivers aren't able to get a "handshake" from their respective "clients;" XP will reboot continuously until communication can be established. Also, Recovery Console will not work if the BIOS routines can't be accurately read.
You might want to take your computer apart and examine all the components and cables. Have you had any problems with your CPU fan? Have you tried a manual OEM extended POST test? On some computer makes, the default POST test simply glosses over the minor items without respect to the checksum result and reports that everything is OK, when in fact, there has been damage.
>Trublu
as you described it - when I choose Safe Mode option, there is a pause and then - viola! - we reboot automatically. I've been monkeying with Recovery Console and am getting as far as entering "R" for recovery and then getting one of three blue screens "Problem detected Driver IRQL not less or equal....check hardware....Tech Info....***STOP 0x00000000 (0x067C39DC, etc.) 0.000000D1 (0x08678C8, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xF772A4C5) ***USBPORT.SYS then an address". I disconnected all my external USB cables, leaving only those which are incorporated in the mobo (Abit KV7) at which point I got a different blue error screen after entering "R" stating "Problem Detected Driver IRQL not less or equal....***STOP 0x00000000 (0x067C39DC, etc.)". The cpu id seems to have self-healed. A blue screen prior to the USB screen stated that a file was opened where there was no file (or something to that effect). I have also reconfigured the USB duties to the mobo instead of OS without good effect.
The fact that it keeps changing the error message confuses me - can this be a clue that the mobo is failing?
couple of suggestions, don't know whether they'll help, is access to recovery console being denied because of password ? Just wondered whether booting from Win 2000 disc set would help, see this article and read below 3
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=173
or have you thought of using a Live Boot distro like Insert live boot or Knoppix to access XP?
access is being denied because there was no password set and the 'everyman' option wasn't chosen, but now I can't even get as far as the prompt screen in order to do anything about it.
Can these issues be circumvented by partitioning "C" and reinstalling XP?
It soulds like ntldr is present because you make it all the way to the XP splash screen, but it could be corrupted or misconfigured. I know that this page doesn't quite describe your problem but it is also worth a shot: http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
(the boot disk available there is just handy to have)
A reinstall would definitely determine whether the problem is a failing motherboard, like you had mentioned, or some type of faulty configuration. If you have vital data to back up a bootable system like knoppix should allow you to access the file system. Or, if it can't, it would indicate that there is a file system error.
I'll go ahead and give a try. I'll let you all know how this turns out. I spent some of today pulling the HDD and sticking in another machine, but same problems occur - good news is that the drive is accessible as F:, so it doesn't appear to be a device issue. I can access it as storage so I see light at the end of the tunnel. If your link download doesn't work, I guess I'll opt to reinstall XP on a new partition or just buy a new harddrive, install and then transfer files as necessary.
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic