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Question

XP has stopped booting

Jan 14, 2014 7:50PM PST

Hi

I recently did a clean install of XP home on a Dell XPS M1210. This was SP2, but I installed SP3 and all the latest Windows updates, as well as a host of drivers off the Dell website.

So far so good.

I want to use this for playing back wmp audio files to a D to A converter. So I downloaded Windows media player 10 (this suits me better than later versions) and the Cambridge Audio sound to USB driver. I disabled the standard audio driver in Control Panel. I wanted remote access over the network. Windows remote desktop add on did not want to install, so I used Teamviewer 9. Apart from this, there is almost nothing on the machine, so it's pretty lean and mean.

This worked fine.

I was playing back some music (accessing the system via Teamviewer), and was using Google to access a Youtube video, when the system became unresponsive. It continued to the end of the playlist, but I then shut it down by holding the power button.

From this point onwards, it has refused to boot normally The Windows screen comes up, but then goes black, and the login screen never appears.

Sorry if there is too much detail, but it might help to have the full picture.

I have tried:

Last known good
Restore point

It will boot into safe mode. From there I have

run a chkdsk (no errors reported)
Used MSCONFIG to disable all startup programs and all non-windows services
Uninstalled Teamviewer

But no success with any of these

I have just tried using the Recovery Console to Fixboot and Fixmbr, and it seems to make no difference, although it reported that my mbr was non-standard.

One thing that I have realised is that it seems to have deleted my administrator password. When I go in via safe mode, it just lets me in without asking. When it asked me for the Recovery Console, it rejected my
usual password, but accepted a plain Enter.


Thanks for your help

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I have no idea
Jan 14, 2014 8:15PM PST

I have no idea what went wrong with your setup, but I do have one suggestion: next time, use Ghost or Drive-Image.
With such frequent re-installations, they will save you a whole lot of time.

BTW, did you test other operating systems (Win2k/Win9x/Linux)?

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Simple fix after all
Jan 15, 2014 4:34AM PST

Thanks for good advice.

In desperation, I worked my way back through the restore points, and found one that worked.

Now to go through the final stages with lots of restore points!

Richard

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Since the end is near why not?
Jan 15, 2014 4:36AM PST

Now it's time to backup the machine so you can restore is as the end is near. I use CLONEZILLA, some like TODO.
Bob

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As Bob says, back that system up to an external hard drive!
Jan 15, 2014 5:09AM PST

It's time for two things. First, since MS is pulling the plug on the final remnants of XP support in June, you need to make plans to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 ASAP. Otherwise you're going to be exposed to all kinds of malware with no fix.
The next thing is backup. There're hundreds of good programs to do the backup, and external drives are getting bigger and cheaper by the day. Re backup software, two programs I'm familiar with and like are Easeus Todo Backup Free, and Memeo which has a 30 day free trial and you can buy it for $29.99.
The March 2012 issue of PC World was very high on the FREE program from Easeus and so is CNET. In my experience with a variety of configurations I have to say I'm very impressed. Like Ghost (which unfortunately is no longer on the market) it will back up to a networked drive, and it will create a boot CD for when your PC won't boot. See CNET's review of it at
http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Todo-Backup-Free/3000-2242_4-10964460.html?tag=mncol;1#editorsreview .
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CNET has a lot of backup program reviews at
http://download.cnet.com/windows/backup-software/?tag=contentBody;sideBar .

Some of these are free (last time I checked there were over 300), some have free trials (over 1000), and some are purchase only (over 200).
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External hard drives are best for backup. You can get a 500 GB one for around $50 and a 1 TB one for around $60. You can also buy a 32 GB flash drive for under $20. It's the best insurance you can ever buy!

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I hope this helps. Good luck

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Correction: April, not June!
Jan 15, 2014 5:12AM PST

Correction: MS is pulling the plug on the last remnants of support for XP in April.

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I get the message
Jan 15, 2014 5:25AM PST

Yes, I will be doing a backup.

I will probably have to upgrade the OS - probably to Linux.

The only Windows program that I am using is Windows Media Player 10. I don't want to switch to a later version, as 10 allows me to sort music by composer. Unless I can find something else that does that, I shall be carrying out a very slow sort of my classical music files. Then I will switch.

Richard

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Years ago I tested Explorer and the Composer column.
Jan 15, 2014 5:37AM PST
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All the best
Jan 19, 2014 8:39PM PST

All the best i hope next time You did not get this type of problems....

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Answer
Re: no boot
Jan 15, 2014 6:09AM PST

The default password for the hidden administrator account in XP is no password. That's a well-known backdoor allowing access to virtually all XP machines, because practically no one takes the trouble to give it a password because practically nobody ever sees it because it is hidden and only turns up on the Welcome screen in Safe Mode.
Nothing wrong here.

If you don't have an image of a working system to restore, you can try a system restore from the command prompt (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449 tells how). If that fails, I'd start all over.
Then make a restorable image (Acronis or Clonezilla or Easeus, for example) when everything is up and running, so it will be easier next time.


Kees