I was on my computer (Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2) for an hour, after I was done using is I turned it off. I tried turning it on but the Windows loading screen was there for an hour! Tried again 3 time, then tried to go into safe mode and any other stuff.

I even tried reinstalling Windows. When I tried to boot from the Windows XP CD, the screen just went black. When I tried Windows Vista, I was staring at Windows Vista loading bar for an hour. What do I do?

And please guys, don't tell me to remove the hard drive or anything or telling me to get a slave drive...


Thanks in Advance!

Dell Dimension 8400
Windows XP SP2 w/Media Center 2005
Radeon x3000--I think
1 GB 3.12 mhz --- Dont remember good

Well, best suggestion then is trying to boot from a CD into Knoppix (an alternate operating system). If this fails you're pretty much forced to facing BIOS / hardware issues and removing that drive to recover your data.
See How to recover your folders/files when Windows won’t boot

What power supply do you have?

I have seen on several occasions that waiting is a really good option as long as the computer is turned on. I had a problem like that with an Acer 5570 laptop and as soon as the fan came on, I was able to restart and boot. Check it out, there are several posts here annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com Sorry I couldn't give you a clickable link, I am new here.

Hello Buzbyb6,

Thank you for posting to the Microsoft Answers Forum.

I have some questions for you to help with troubleshooting your issue.

When trying to boot do you get a blue screen? If so, then try to get the error code number that comes up. That will give us more insight as to what could be causing your issue.
Can you boot into Safe Mode? Press F8 as Vista is starting up. then select Safe Mode.
Some of the things that could cause this issue would be a corrupt file system, bad Ram, or faulty hardware.

If you can get into safe mode. Run CHKDSK to fix the file system. Go to a command prompt and type chkdsk /r
Check the RAM using Memtest from a bootable floppy or CD. www.memtest.org
Check the HDD for bad sectors.
If its just a corrupted OS, backup your data and run Recovery to restore Windows to its factory state.
Please post again and let us know if your issue is resolved or if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,

Do you have the Dell Windows XP Media Center CD recover/restore disk available... It will be either a pale green or burnt orange color... in most cases.
We may suggest that you try a R for Repair if you have the Dell disk... If not, you can call Dell and they will send you one... provided you are the original owner of the Dell. Otherwise, you first need to register your name and address at Dell first.

Try going into BIOS and changing your startup sequence to CD first, HDD 2nd.

When you say that "I've booted with the windows xp pro cd and used the recovery console to check the file integrity and it is fine", does this mean that you ran a "CHKDSK /R" from the recovery console?

If not, I think that would be the best next step.

Post back if you've already tried that and I'll show you how to replace the five "hive" files with their backups from the recovery console.