Windows XP Blue Screens on Startup

[stephenj5]

I am running Windows XP, and recently it has started blue screening on startup, and I cant get past it. I had a little issue where if I tapped the side of my case or bumped it with my leg, my graphics card fan would spin up very fast and basically the screen would go black, I would power down then power back up and everything would be fine. The last time this happened though I powered back up and this is when my computer started to blue screen. I did find out what was causing the fan issue and the black out, but not what is causing the blue screen issue.

I have opened up my cause and I was poking around to make sure everything was seated correctly and everything is. I have also unplugged my slave drives that are on IDE to listen to my main drive on SATA to see if it was spinning up correctly and it is, as far as I can tell there is no problem with the hard drive.

When it boots up, I end up at the which start up do you want to do: start windows normally, safe mode, last good config. etc. I have tried all of them and each one blue screens at the exact same point. So i decided to throw my windows CD in and go into recovery and see if I could do a CHKDSK and check it out. When I get into it. There was only one drive to choose from, I for the life of me cant remember if its the one I want or not, but i do my that my main drive isnt set to C: so I clicked on it and it wanted a password, which I have no idea what that admin password would be, cause I dont really have one set up on my computer. I tried a few things and shut it down once again. unplugged my drives again and checked a few things and next thing I know, nothing is booting except the CD, cant find my drive. So I changed cables and plugged the drive into the second SATA slot and it came back, still blue screening.

So im not sure what there is I can do. I think my hard drive is fine, not sure how I can get CHKDSK to run, and none of the other startup options work. And friend of mine told me to dl and burn memtest, which will do a test on the memory to see if its bad, as that would cause blue screens on start up.

So any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[kimsland]

Sorry for delay, I didn't see the post till now

Please run Memtest on your Ram

 

[stephenj5]

Well I ran through memtest, did 13 passes and not a single error, so its not the memory, so im really not sure what else it could be.

 

[southside419]

Sounds like you need to re-install or repair windows and as far as your administrator password goes you dont have one until you set it your self.....now when it asked you for your admin password were you in a dos prompt of windows repair?

 

[stephenj5]

Well I let windows load its installer, once that was complete I hit R to go into recovery and it asked me to choose a windows install, which had D:\WINDOWS, which D isnt my main drive letter, so I think its reading one of the slave drives. Which might mean my drive is actually dead, but I think its more of windows being corrupt. But the prompt is pretty much dos id say. I did notice that when I booted off the cd for the first time it had an option before lading to hit F2 to go into recovery, I clicked that but it wanted the recovery disk or a floppy... Think it just wanted a floppy of some sort. And I only have an OEM install disk for Windows.

 

[southside419]

ok well try this...unplug your slave drives and go into your bios and see if its picking it up that way make sure all of your hdd settings are automatic....and when you put in the windows disc DONT hit R continue to go through the menus and you will see another option to repair windows use that one

 

[kimsland]

Well here are the precise steps to Repair Windows:
Microsoft's Windows XP Home Repair Install step by step
http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdrepair/part3.htm

But regarding the D:\Windows this is quite normal if you have two partitions
The Drive letter D is automatically assigned through running a bootup disc if there are multiple partitions (it may not refer to what Windows actually sees)

But more importantly is why there is another partition at the front of the drive
This could actually be a recovery partition. Made to recover your computer back to how it was first made. Note: Running a recovery (not repair) will remove all your data and personal settings.

You therefore may want to try the repair steps (linked above) first on D:\Windows

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Now by the way a Repair of Windows may in fact not fix your issue, which at this stage could be:
Faulty Video card or other hardware
Faulty drivers (or conflicts)
Certain software programs (including Virus\malware activity)
Harddrive corruption

I was trying to eliminate each of these as we went
An excellent way to test faulty drivers and software would be to try and start your computer in Safe mode (by repetitively pressing F8 key before Windows startup, then selecting Safe Mode)

In Safe mode you also can do a Checkdisk (ie Harddrive corruption) and you are able to turn off (or uninstall programs) certain or all startups; this may include Antivirus software. You can turn off any startups by running msconfig and then selecting diagnostic mode, then restarting normally.

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Now if you are unable to load Safe mode
You can also run Checkdisk from using the Windows boot CD
Boot from the Windows CD
Select the first R prompt (for the recovery console)
Log on to D:\Windows (in your case)
At the command prompt, type:
chkdsk d: /f

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So your choice which way you go first