Xp,Persistent restart

[gideon]

Hi,
My XP has now gone into a continues check disk and restart mode, it doesn't get any further than the welcome screen then goes off and restarts, going through the check disk, all OK there, then to Windows start up, then Welcome screen then switch off and restarts the check disk again etc etc.

Have tried to get Safe Mode but this XP has never been able to get there, get screen full of lines of data and no further progress.

To get here I have had to connect my Linux disk.

Any Clues please.

[davey6]

if this pc won't start in safe mode try the other option of start in last known good config.
if that still won't work your limited to two choice's one is to repair windows xp from the install disk and the other is to blank the hard drive and install fresh.

it sounds like windows is stuck on your video card driver install.
its one of last drivers to load before windows starts, windows then crashes and because you have auto restart enabled in the error handling it goes in to a loop.
you would stand a better chance if you disabled that on any clean or repaired install as windows would give you that ever so nice blue screen of death with a crash code, the only good thing about that is you get the crash code and you can find out what is going wrong.

i don't think this is going to repair from the first repair option in the windows install but it should repair from the second, there is a chance you might loose some of your work

to do that repair is simple enought start the windows install as normal , when you get the option repair windows or install a clean copy choose install clean copy
carry on the install to the point of choosing the partition windows is on, highlight where you have windows at this point of the install windows will give you the option to repair again and thats the one you do as what it does is delete all the start up files and replace them with new ones and replaces the windows folder while saving what it can from your old install in to a folder on your c drive.

[gideon]

Thanks for that, will bear in mind when I get my new XP disk, my others have run out of activation rights. Am using Linux programs pro tem.

The same problem happened with them, consistent restarts and freezing etc, Have solved it by removing one of my 1G memory cards that didn't look too healthy to me, all is working as it should now. When have enough funds from my next pension input to bank will purchase a 2G memory stick and remove the 1G.

Many thanks.[/align]

[davey6]

you better off getting 2 x 1 gig matched pair to support dual channel.
or 2 x 2 gig depending on how much memory you mother board will take.

http://www.memtest.org/

that should show any faults in that memory.

[55worldchamp]

Not sure if this is the right place to post regarding this problem: I have a HP dv9205us computer that was a mess when I bought it (for next to nothing). I re- formatted the hard drive and I installed an old copy of xp pro (I think it is sp1). Anyhow. I got everything installed OK. Everything works perfect, however, when I turn the computer off and try to re-boot, whether it is one minute or one day, it takes sometimes one cycle to as many as 100's of cycles of a post before it will show the HP and xp splash screens and fire up. Once it does it works perfectly. I do have SP3 installed, however I have absolutely no problems once it fires up. I am using the computer right now. What should I do?

[davey6]

if i am reading your post correct your not getting the HP or bios cold start ?

if that is the case the bios is failing its quick start and this in turn means a hardware problem not a windows problem.
you should really start with the memory chips and make sure they are working.
next time the laptop refuses to start take one memory stick out of the machine and try and boot it.

the memory slot is on the bottom of that laptop under a trap door that you unscrew.

[55worldchamp]

Davey

Thanks for that thought. I however tried that and the memory seems to working fine and it registers properly in the system properties. One thought. One stick is 2 gb and the other is 1 gb. Would this create a problem, and if so, why does it boot sometime without delay or problem?

Thanks

---

One more thought: I do get the HP screen that will let me enter the BIOS, if that helps

[davey6]

this is fun, i am hanging on a body harness by a support wire and on the net, this is a first even for me.

anyway to your problem a mixed size ram is not always a problem as long as they match speed wise you just miss the dual channel support.

mixed size and mixed speed can cause the bios to halt as it can't time them correct.
it should time the ram to the slowest stick you have but some bios do have a problem with doing that.

one word of advise put the 2 gig ram in slot 1 and the 1 gig ram in slot two.
the 2 gig will then get used by the o/s first.

if its not a memory fault it can be anything that the bios reads and that list is endless.
but a few you can test yourself.

keyboard, tell the bios not to report a bad keyboard
mouse/trackpad, again tell the bios not to report
hard drive firmware
dvdrom firmware
chipset
cpu

once the laptop is up and running do a burn in test on the hardware but make sure the laptop is not sitting on anything that will block its air vents as this test will stress the hardware for possible faults and will cause alot of heat.
http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm

you can use the free version just for this testing.

[Alisam]

I tried a recovery disk from my laptop but as this was for windows 7 it couldn't fix the problem. It does read/boot from a disk but I haven't got the right recovery disk any ideas where I could get a download to fix this problem? I tried packard bell support but couldn't find the model no. for my desktop.

[davey6]

might help if you list what windows your trying to recover.