Windows XP Pro SP2 or SP3
ASUS 333 motherboard
AMD Athlon 1.8 GHZ
512 MB, 512 MB & 256 MB, DDR 333
80 GB IDE Western Digital HDD
Friend said the problem began out of the blue 26 Oct when PC was turned on.
Boot process proceeded to displaying hardware IRQ information & drive information
At bottom of the screen, white rectangles appeared. The progress area completed the left most 3 or 5 rectangles; then froze.
HDD passed WD's HDD diags.
I removed the 3 sticks of ram & inserted a known working DDR 333 stick, 512 MB
No change.
Thinking that the problem might be a corrupt registry, per
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/307545
At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following lines, pressing ENTER after you type each line:
md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default
Now, the IRQ information is displayed & the drive information is displayed. THEN, a black screen appears. No option to enter safe mode, last known good configuration or other advanced options.
I booted to the recovery console and ran these commands
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
copy C:\windows\tmp\system.bak c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy C:\windows\tmp\software.bak c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy C:\windows\tmp\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy C:\windows\tmp\security.bak c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy C:\windows\tmp\default.bak c:\windows\system32\config\default
No change.
I look forward to your assistance.
Edit #1
I replaced the AGP card with a PCI video card.
No change.
I can boot completely to a "desktop" using a UBCD [ Ultimate Boot CD ] [
www.ubcd4win.com ]
Edit #2
Per
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a , it appears that NTLDR
Sincerely,
RF123