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Resolved Question

cannot boot windows - drive OR installation disk

Feb 8, 2014 6:41AM PST

I have somehow managed to fix it so that I cannot boot either from the c drive or the xp installation drive. When trying from c drive it gets to the place where it says windows and the line show ing the load and stops about 3 bars in. When trying to boot off the installation disk it gives me the blue screen and says setup in the upper left corner, and reads the cd for about 5/10 minutes, stops and simply hangs.

I have also seen, one time, that there is some kind of setup password. I think this is coming from the bios which I have looked for but, maybe not hard enough.

Anyway - any thoughts?

Discussion is locked

jgw0 has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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When the CD boot fails like that
Feb 8, 2014 7:21AM PST

You look over the machine for maintenance issues. How long it's been since the heatsink compound was replaced and the canned air cleaning. It's rarely anything other than hardware issues.
Bob

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update
Feb 8, 2014 8:59AM PST

I just blew it out but it was clean. I also checked all my connections. I will do more tomorrow as my work space is filled with my wife's machine which I just put a new motherboard and am in the process of updating it which takes a long time.

Thank you for the advice and the reply.

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update
Feb 9, 2014 5:18AM PST

You were spot on with the hardware solution. Thank you.

I really didn't do much but make sure of my connections, blow it out, etc. I did take a look at the cpu but it was literally glued to the fan thing so I left that alone. I should have done that myself so I thank you again.

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Sounds like progress.
Feb 9, 2014 5:36AM PST

Be aware that if the heatsink appears glued on, that's fine. However the heatsink compound when it's old enough to become like concrete may develop a crack and then it will come off and we can clean and replace that old compound.

But good choice to stop for now.
Bob

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Answer
I have seen this
Feb 8, 2014 10:16PM PST

I have seen this when for one reason or another Windows cannot read the partition table on the drive, such as if you had installed Linux previously for example. If you use some third party partitioning program to make sure you have nothing but NTFS partition types on the drive it tends to go through.

I can't say for sure this is your current problem, but if Windows won't boot, it's at least possible that's because something got scrambled on the partition and in turn is tripping up the installer. So you'd be no worse off if you downloaded Linux to a CD/DVD or flash drive and used a partitioning program to redo the partition scheme on the drive.

However, with XP support ending in approximately 4 months, it might just be time to call this a sign and move on.