XP stuck in a loop will not boot to desktop

[aslaton]

Hi,

I have a pc that just goes right to the screen that's say there was an error: then it gives you options to choose last known good configuration, safe mode etc. None of the options I choose work. I used my xp disk and went to the recovery console and ran chkdsk /r/p. I also tried to rebuild the the boot ini file and even tried to fixmbr and nothing works. I went to the bios and can see the pc is clearly reading the hard drive. Does anyone have any experience with this? What else can I do try and fix this problem. Oh yea the operating system is windows xp home.

Thanks In Advance

 

[raybay]

We need to know more about your computer brand and mode, hard drive brand and model, computer configuration, and age of hard drive. It appears from first glance that your hard drive has failed... but the data on the drive can be recovered using an external USB enclosure.

One effort to try would be to boot to the Windows disk that cam with that hard drive install, then boot to the eventual choice of R for Repair (not R for Repair Console which preceeds It) then see if that sort of full recovery via the R for Repair Routh helps get it working properly.
If not, and if the hard drive has some miles on it, I would do nothing further until you have recovered all your files, programs and data to another disk.

 

[aslaton]

We need to know more about your computer brand and mode, hard drive brand and model, computer configuration, and age of hard drive. It appears from first glance that your hard drive has failed... but the data on the drive can be recovered using an external USB enclosure.

One effort to try would be to boot to the Windows disk that cam with that hard drive install, then boot to the eventual choice of R for Repair (not R for Repair Console which preceeds It) then see if that sort of full recovery via the R for Repair Routh helps get it working properly.
If not, and if the hard drive has some miles on it, I would do nothing further until you have recovered all your files, programs and data to another disk.

Thanks for the reply the computer is an acer aspire, hard drive wd caviar se 160 gig, ram 256 mb ram. I actually did run the xp disk and I chose r for repair; thats when I ran chkdsk, fixmbr and and I tried to rebuild the boot ini file.

 

[raybay]

My guess is that you simply do not have enough memory with your reported 256 MB. Without the model number, we cannot be certain, but we do not know of any Windows computer that can get by on less than 512 MB, and the more above that, the better. The WD Caviar is a good hard drive, with the 160 GB having a history of good and long-time performance.

 

[aslaton]

My guess is that you simply do not have enough memory with your reported 256 MB. Without the model number, we cannot be certain, but we do not know of any Windows computer that can get by on less than 512 MB, and the more above that, the better. The WD Caviar is a good hard drive, with the 160 GB having a history of good and long-time performance.

Acer Aspire T135, I also tried a gig of ram and a different cable for the hard drive.

 

[spkenny]

raybay is correct in saying the hard drive could have bad sectors and is failing. However he is incorrect in saying that computers today cannot get by with less than 512 ram, as I am a onsite tech and run into systems running xp with only 256 ram rather constantly. That said, it is strongly recommended that at some point, you upgrade to at least 512 as applications and such today will run extremely slow with only 256 in your computer. As for your problem, you can run a diagnostic on the hard drive to check for failure. I've also seen this due to a virus or malware. But it requires some looking into and diagnostics need to be ran to weed out the problem.

 

[aslaton]

raybay is correct in saying the hard drive could have bad sectors and is failing. However he is incorrect in saying that computers today cannot get by with less than 512 ram, as I am a onsite tech and run into systems running xp with only 256 ram rather constantly. That said, it is strongly recommended that at some point, you upgrade to at least 512 as applications and such today will run extremely slow with only 256 in your computer. As for your problem, you can run a diagnostic on the hard drive to check for failure. I've also seen this due to a virus or malware. But it requires some looking into and diagnostics need to be ran to weed out the problem.

Right now I am running hdd regenerator hopefully this will fix the issue.

 

[LookinAround]

1) I agree with spkenny re: raybay is wrong. Even in worst case, an XP computer may run miserably slow with 256MB but the memory size alone wouldn't cause the boot sequence to blue screen.

2) You might try booting into Knoppix
> To see if the problem is unique to Windows
> Also allows you to recover your files/folders before continuing further
> See [post=766270]How to recover your folders/files when Windows won’t boot[/post]

3) Also, suggest when you boot make sure all uneccessary devices are disconnected (e.g. usb devices). Also if your computer has any internal devices (like card readers, fingerprint readers try to disable them in BIOS if possible)