Computer hangs after Post

[cdm]

Hello

I have P3 500 - 384mbram - 32mbvcard - WinXP OS - 15gig hdd
The pc was working fine - a couple days later i would start the computer and it would hang after post. I would hear 1 beep which is the normal one and then the screen would just remain black. I tried to reseat the video card, memory but no change. I put in my WinXp recovery cd but my cd-rom just keeps turning but doesn't read the content. I tried pressing F8 wont' bring me to safe mode. It just boots - passes Post and hangs. I went into the BIOS and restored defaults. But still doesn't work. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[Vigilante]

Almost sounds like a resolution problem. Does the monitor give any message like "out of range" or anything like that?

After resetting the BIOS, go in and change the boot order to have CD-ROM first. Then try booting off your XP CD again.
Another thing it may be your HDD is bad somehow, and the system fails when trying to boot, but even that would give an error on screen. maybe

Does the system still respond to keyboard? Like if you press ctrl-alt-del will it restart?

good luck

 

[cdm]

Hi thanks for the quick response
I did change the boot order but it was already on Cdrom first. Still wont' detect it. There is no error message on my screen and my Monitor has the green light on so i know its working. I see when my pc posts so i don't think its video related. My keyboard is working and I tried to press ctrl alt delete and it doesn't do anything. It stays black.

 

[Vigilante]

You said the keyboard is working but ctrl-alt-del doesn't do anything. How do you know the keyboard is working?

If you see the POST messages, and get a single, normal beep, and then goes black right when it is supposed to go to Windows, then it is likely a software issue. Probably Windows trying to load but freezing very early on and staying black.

I wish we could boot off your XP CD. Can you get a newer, clean CD? Can you try another CD-ROM drive? If all else fails, you can try downloading the 4 XP boot floppies and try to boot from those. Though it still requires the CD eventually.

Perhaps try downloading and burning to a CD, the Ultimate Boot CD from http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/. Burn the ISO and try to boot from that. It has various hard drive and system diagnostics you could run on the HDD.

As a test, try turning the PC off and physically unplugging the HDD from data and power, then boot the PC. With no HDD to boot from, it should stop at the "insert valid boot disk" message or some such message. In other words, it should not go black, but instead ask what to boot from. If it still goes black even with no HDD, perhaps it is a hardware issues.

 

[cdm]

OK so i unplugged the power to the HDD and it did give me the error DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. So i'm able to put in diskettes. Is there a way i can system restore or i really need to download the 4 bootable disks?

 

[Vigilante]

There isn't much reason why your CD-ROM shouldn't boot from a CD. Unless your CD was a custom burned one, or is scratched up. Try burning to CD, the Ultimate Boot CD, or Memtest86. Both have bootable CD images. If you can't boot off those either, your CD-Drive has issues, perhaps you can clean it with a cleaning kit.

Otherwise, you can get the xp bootable floppies from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...07-99F7-4A2D-983D-81C2137FF464&displaylang=en
Assuming you have XP Home with SP2. You can find other links there for XP Pro and so forth.

I've never used the floppies, so I don't know if this will let you go to Recovery Console or if it's ONLY an install.

In either case, there is obviously something wrong with your hard drive. Go to the web site of the manufacturer of the drive, such as Western Digital or Seagate. Almost all of them have a boot floppy with utilities you can run to test the drive and look for errors. Find in their downloads or support areas.
If you are able to get in Recovery Console (with HDD plugged in), I want you to run chkdsk /r /p and see what happens.

Good luck

 

[Fer]

I’m having exactly the same problem that cdm describes. Where you able to fix it?
If so, how? Thanks!