Windows Wont Start

Hello, my windows wont start, this happened after trying to configure things to work with sims2 which my sister palys on the pc. I updated windows from the website and installed the latest catalyst drivers for the radeon 9550 agp card. Now it gets to the screen that says windows did not start properly last time, choose last known good, normal, etc, no option lets it start. Pc reboots over and over, i suspect the graphics drivers loading may be the problem. How can i use the recovery console on the winxp cd to disable them? Or what should I do, i can enter recovery console but dont know what to do now, microsoft cannot help without paying £50, i would rather clean install.
please help, thank you

 

F8 Safe boot

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Thanks for moving it ddp.

Noqoilpi, I already tried safe mode etc, I said "no option lets it start". I replaced ntldr and ntdetect.com from the xp cd, didn't help. Also I did fixmbr and fixboot, also didn't help. So I started to do a repair install of XP off the cd, and it got so far, just after you enter the product key, then restarted again. Mangaged to get it to boot into xp setup a couple of times, always restarted at the same place. Now it's back to the same situation as before only windows isn't even completely installed now. It restarts always after the first grey bar has loaded across the bottom of the screen, just before when it would normal show the windows xp logo and the blue loading bar.

Could this be a heating issue? I have had some trouble with the hsf on my graphics card, but replaced this, and now it seems fine (apart from the driver issues) it doesnt feel hot now. The cpu fan feels hot though, but this is normal? CPU temp in bios is about 55 degrees C, mboard temp in bios is about 30 degrees C. Pc is a P4 3 GHZ on Asrock P4VT8+ mboard, ati radeon 9550 graphics, 512 ram. I think it could be heating or a hardware problem, something bad anyway. Any ideas?

 

Thank you ddp, I will try this and repost when done. It will probably be tomorrow now, but thanks.

 

The MFT could be corrupt. You doing a fresh install, or an 'over' installon top of the old one? Boot to the recovery console and type 'chkdsk /r' and it will scna the drive for errors and repair them. If this is the cause of the problem, you should be able to continue our installation. Oh....check to make sure the CD is clean and not scratched, considering it is stopping in the same spot every time.

~Rich

 

Thanks for the suggestions,

I used a pencil eraser on the gold contacts on the ram, same situation. I will try the thing with the MFT today then post back what I find a little later.

Thanks.

oh yeah, I'm doing an installation over the top of the old one at the moment, not a fresh one.

 

I ran "chkdsk /r" from the recovery console, it took a long time and scanned/fixed any errors, but this did not help the situation. Still restarts at the same point after the grey bar has loaded and just before the xp logo and blue loading bar would appear.
I also used the pencil eraser on the contacts of the graphics card just incase, no change.

Some other information, while doing the reinstall, it said it could not copy some files from the cd, I checked that the cd was clean and scratch free, which it was. It asked if I wanted to retry, skip etc, I always pressed retry and it just continued, this happened with some 20 to 30 files. Also during the reinstall, when it is copying files and registering devices etc and windows is boasting about how good it is (ha!), the screen blacked out a few times, at which point I thought it would restart but it came back on and continued, restarting at the point after I set the regional settings and enter the product key. As I already mentioned, now it is not continuing with the installation and is restarting when windows first loads, and the only option that appears in advanced boot options is windows xp, I guess since the installation is not complete and the others have not been installed.

Is it the graphics card? I really don't have a clue anymore... I replaced the HSF on the graphics card after the old one failed recently, but the pc was working fine. I did take it off to remove some of the thermal paste when I had been advised that I used too much, I refitted it using about a small pea sized amount. The PC worked both before and after I did this, the only problems appearing when trying to play sims2 really. It restarted while the game was playing and then would keep restarting as it is doing now, until I went into the bios and saved and exited (yes without changing anything...?) then windows would start again, going into the bios does not let me in now. Sims2 then started coming up with an error message saying please use a video adapter that is direct x9 compatible, which the card is, and I have the latest direct x and drivers for the card. Sims2 used to work fine on this same system.

 

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try or why this is happening? I really need to get my computer up and running again, currently I am just using the library computer to try and sort this out.

Please help!

 

Here is an update on the situation now,

I didn't know what else to do so I did a format of C: from the recovery console and started to do a fresh install from xp cd. It got to the point after I entered product key and regional settings, then just stopped installing, the loading animation in the bottom right of the screen was still moving and I could still move the mouse, but nothing was happening, the install just stopped. I restarted and it did the same but at a different point in the install, just after where it had done so previously. Then when I restarted after this time it started to continue the install then I got a BSOD and this error:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000020, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x8050491F)



Then I manually restarted the computer and recieved the following BSOD and error message, which I get everytime I start the PC now, comes up when windows should load (after the grey bar has loaded):

BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO

*** STOP: 0x00000074 (0x00000003, 0x00000002, 0x80087000, 0xC000014C)



Does this help identify what is actually going on now?

Thanks

 

The Stop Error:

[bold]BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO

*** STOP: 0x00000074 (0x00000003, 0x00000002, 0x80087000, 0xC000014C) [/bold]

is usually a RAM error. Read about it here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=326679&sd=RMVP

How many sticks of RAM do you have in the computer?

 

I have one stick of 512mb ram. And I think I identified the problem, well, not really me, with help from some other people.

I tired to boot to ubuntu live cd, and it booted but when I tried to run an application such as firefox, it would restart ubuntu (not restart the whole pc like windows does though). Also I wanted to test the ram with memtest but was wondering how I would get it since I couldnt keep a browser open for long enough to download it, and probably couldnt burn a bootable cd with it either since the system was so unstable. Lo and behold, the ubuntu cd has memtest bootable on it! So I ran it, and it found errors on the ram, first time it found 48, then I gave the ram quite a rigorous scrub with the pencil eraser and the next times it only found 1 error...? Anyway, after this, the windows installation completed. However, it wasn't stable and kept restarting once windows had fully loaded, however Linux seemed to be perfectly stable off the live cd. So then I went into bios and changed what ram settings I could, I changed the DRAM frequency from auto to the lowest setting and I changed the ram voltage from normal to high. Now windows boots and seems to be running normally, I am typing this from my pc in windows now. I don't know why the changes I made in the bios seem to let it work (and I wish I tried them before I did the format/reinstall), perhaps the ram is under less load now because it is performing at a slower rate? I don't know if I need both of the settings I changed in place to let windows run stable either, I will test this by checking each seperately with ubuntu and see when it's stable (hoping that this test more or less represents what will happen with windows faithfully). Also I haven't run another memtest yet but I will after I check the bios changes with ubuntu. So i guess I need new ram then? Well at least I can still use this broken ram for now =)

Oh yeah, thanks to ddp for suggesting I scrub the contacts, just wish I went harder first time.

 

Be careful with this. It will cause the RAM to die sooner. Try and go back to the normal setting and see if it will remain stable.

I'd replace the RAM as soon as possible.

 

Really? I thought I was sort of underclocking the ram? I changed the "DRAM Frequency" from auto to 133mhz (DDR266). I'm pretty sure the ram is DDR333. Is the main problem setting the voltage to high? In regards to the ram dieing sooner, it's already dead and resurrected, I don't mind if it dies now, just aslong as I know what the problem is. I will try it with voltage set to normal though and see how it goes, cheers!

 

Changing the frequency does mean it will run slower. But increasing the voltage at the same time will only mean it will run hotter.

Heat = shorter life span

 

Update on this issue,

I ordered some new ram and I'm waiting for it to arrive, in the meantime I've been using the pc with the ram frequency set to 133mhz and the voltage set to high. It started to display the same symptoms as before, not booting, or taking many attempts to finally boot into windows (again, seemed to work better once I had entered the bios without doing anything..), and restarting the pc now and then. I expected this kind of thing since as I said before memtest found errors in the ram. I ran memtest again (off the ubuntu linux cd as before) but this time it found no errors. I let it run for about 20 tests on one occasion and 30 the next, no errors found either time. Hmm, isn't this strange? Also before it said there were 48 errors, then after cleaning the ram some more, it said 1 error, now it's saying there are no errors!? Could this mean that really the problem is elsewhere and the ram is ok? I hope not, since I thought I finally knew what was going on and ordered new ram, now I'm not sure again.

Why would memtest now show no errors?

 

Download this:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Microsoft_Windows_Memory_Diagnostic_d3955.html

Create a floppy with the file. Boot from the floppy and run the test. Post back the results.

 

Hi, I downloaded the memory tester and made the boot disk. Ran the tests 10 passes, no errors. I also changed the ram settings in bios back to how they should be (frequency = auto, voltage = normal) and it passed 10 tests without errors like this too. I still needed to change back to 133mhz and high voltage to get windows to boot though...