XP Boot Problem

[emoguy]

Hello everbody. I'm new here, and I've looked through many old posts to see if I could find a solution to my problem, and there have been many similar posts, but nothing has worked. So here we go.

I recently re-formatted my hard drive by deleting my partition and creating a new one. I re-installed Windows XP Professional, and everything was fine. I restarted and set up a network to transfer files back to my computer, and when booting Windows froze at the "Windows XP Professional" screen where the blue bar moves across the screen. Since I had not copied back any files yet, I reformatted and installed windows again. This time I set up the network, copied everything back over, and shut down. The next day the same thing happened when I tried to boot up. I repaired XP using the CD, and it ran again, but after turning it off I ran into the same problem. I repaired XP two more times (just to be sure), and was able to turn my computer on twice before it happened again one time, and once the other time.

Any help would be very greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[natcom]

can you give as more info about your computer

 

[emoguy]

Sure. It's not a brand name computer, and I don't know all that much about it, but i'll do as much as i can.

Intel D850MV motherboard
Pentium 4 1.9 GHz processor
2x 256meg RD RAM
West Dig. 100gig HD
GeForce3 64meg Video Card
Agere Lucent 56k modem
Realtek Network Card
Cyberdrive 16x12x40 CDR/W
Vintek 54x CD ROM

 

[Elvandil]

Try some hardware tests just to eliminate hardware as a possibility:

http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/pccheck5.50.zip (Floppy maker)
http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/PCChk550ISO.zip (CD image)

 

[emoguy]

Try some hardware tests just to eliminate hardware as a possibility:

http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/pccheck5.50.zip (Floppy maker)
http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/PCChk550ISO.zip (CD image)

Should I just download and run both of them in Safe Mode?

 

[VaporTrace]

I hate it when that happens.
My problems usually stem from bad spots on the drive in area that must be perfect. Western Digital has an older floppy based app that does a pattern test, WDAT.exe if I remember right. It will take a couple of DAYS to complete. I've had a great deal of success with it on 20 and 40 Gig drives but am not sure if it handles 100 Gig.
What it does is write about 16 predefined bit patterns to the drive and reads them back. If there is a bad spot the drive will see the pattern error and relocate the sector to a spare cylinder. You'll hear a click click if you listen closely. Then reload your OS one more time cause the pattern tester will overwrite data.
OR
You could shell out some bucks for something like Spinrite 6.

A sure fire way to disprove my theory is try a spare drive. If the same thing happens, I'm all messed up.

 

[VaporTrace]

I'm having one of those moments. DUH moments.
Did you try pulling the Network card or disabling it in the BIOS if its built in?
You mentioned it was when you setup the network.

 

[Elvandil]

For the hardware tests, just download the first if you have a floppy drive. Unzip the file and run the program inside. It will create a bootable floppy for you. Put in the floppy and boot your machine from it. Menus will appear that allow you to get all kinds of system information or to conduct tests on all detected hardware. Choose the advanced tests. Perform as many of them as you have the time and inclination to do. All are safe and make no changes to your system EXCEPT those marked as "destructive". These tests are only to be performed when you no longer are interested in saving the contents of the hard drive since they involve reading and writing to it and you will lose data.

 

[emoguy]

I'm having one of those moments. DUH moments.
Did you try pulling the Network card or disabling it in the BIOS if its built in?
You mentioned it was when you setup the network.

For the hardware tests, just download the first if you have a floppy drive. Unzip the file and run the program inside. It will create a bootable floppy for you. Put in the floppy and boot your machine from it. Menus will appear that allow you to get all kinds of system information or to conduct tests on all detected hardware. Choose the advanced tests. Perform as many of them as you have the time and inclination to do. All are safe and make no changes to your system EXCEPT those marked as "destructive". These tests are only to be performed when you no longer are interested in saving the contents of the hard drive since they involve reading and writing to it and you will lose data.

I'll try both of these and get back to you. Thanks a bunch.

 

[emoguy]

For the hardware tests, just download the first if you have a floppy drive. Unzip the file and run the program inside. It will create a bootable floppy for you. Put in the floppy and boot your machine from it. Menus will appear that allow you to get all kinds of system information or to conduct tests on all detected hardware. Choose the advanced tests. Perform as many of them as you have the time and inclination to do. All are safe and make no changes to your system EXCEPT those marked as "destructive". These tests are only to be performed when you no longer are interested in saving the contents of the hard drive since they involve reading and writing to it and you will lose data.

I don't have a floppy drive on this computer so I donwloaded the CD one, but I'm not sure how to use it. Do I just burn it to a CD?

 

[Elvandil]

No. It's a CD image. You'll need to burn it as such. Somewhere in your burner options should be one for burning images.

 

[emoguy]

Sorry for taking so long to respond. . .
I did all the hardware checks and all of them turned out fine. Any reccomendations as to what I should try now?

 

[emoguy]

Oh!
I forgot to add this. When I tried to start my computer in safe mode when it wouldn't start regularly, i got a lot of lines that said something like this before it started:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP\System32\Drivers
That may not be exact because the screen was only on for a very short amount of time. The computer would successfully start in safe mode after this went away.

 

[emoguy]

anybody?