Dell with Windows XP unable to boot (again)

W

WeZona

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
69
This is the second time this has happened with a Dell computer, and I'd like to take care of this so that when it happens again I will be prepared.

I was working on a client's desktop, a Dell Dimension 8200 with Windows XP Home. The computer is old, riddled with spyware, unused programs, and most likely a ton of viruses. As you might expect, it's slow as shit. At one point, the computer froze for whatever reason. I couldn't get to the task manager, so I did a hard shutdown. Upon startup, the computer would not boot into windows. The process goes something like this:

-Because Windows was not shut down properly, the computer will boot to the screen where you can select the startup mode: start normally, start in safe mode, last configuration that worked correctly, etc.
- No matter what option you choose, a blue screen of death will flash for a fraction of a second, too short for me to decipher what it says, and the computer will restart itself back to the Dell logo. Essentially it's stuck in a loop.

I tried doing a Windows repair, but the Windows install CD says there is no previous version of Windows on the hard drive. Like I said, this is the second time this happened. Last time, I ended up backing up all the data with hard drive recovery tools, reinstalling Windows, and trying desperately to restore the computer to its original configuration. I don't want to go that route again because it's incredibly frustrating and time consuming.

I just tried to restore the MBR. It didn't work, but the Windows repair console said the boot partition was of an unknown type. I'm thinking the boot partition was somehow corrupted or damaged. Anyway I'm out of ideas. Has anyone ever come across this before?

EDIT: Aside from being slow and the occasional popup, the computer was working fine before that hard shutdown.
 
Reminds me of once when I corrupted an XP install due to my RAM being overclocked waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far - could just be blind luck as to how/when you did the hard power off.
 
Could be something wrong with Windows as well.

I've had this happen three times as well on a family's Dell.

Can't boot up with Linux or anything, won't mount the drive, can't even run a directory of C:\

Formatting fixes it every time. They are finally using it for stuff they "need" rather than just goofing off, so I got a second hard drive to back data up to daily.

It could be the hard drive, but I really don't know why it works just fine after you format and reinstall (it passes chkdsk just fine- even when scanning actual sectors).

Just telling you what I've found out.
I would buy a second HDD and daily backup the data to it. You could try mirroring as well- I'd be curious to see (if it happens again) wether it is a hardware problem or if it is a Windows crashing problem (because the desktop I'm talking about had the whole uneducated users thing as well. Running Vista now, so running viruses that take down the whole system shouldn't be an issue anymore as they don't have Admin access).
 
Listen up kiddies. This may very well save your life someday.

http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658-0

This tutorial guides you through using the recovery console to replace damaged Windows boot files with ones kept in a special "repair" folder in c:/windows. In this way you can boot back into Windows. The latter parts of the tutorial guide you through getting the PC back to its original state, and at the end you can run system restore.

I did things a little differently, however. On page 2 of the tutorial, instead of using the recovery console, I just hooked up the hard drive as a secondary drive to my personal computer and did it through Windows explorer. It saved me some time and confusion.

Seriously, I was all set to do a hard drive recovery and format/Windows reinstall before I came across this article. Now the computer is back to where it was before the crash, with all of the programs and data intact. It saved me hours of unnecessary reinstallation procedures and an unhappy client.

This tutorial is a MUST HAVE for any serious computer tech.
 
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