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Windows XP won't boot at all;not even from disc!

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hanzalo

Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2005
ok i plugged in my midi controller via usb, and windows didn't detect it. i tired to plug it in again, and i accidentally knocked my wireless adaptor out of its pci slot (it wasnt screwed in because i'm lazy/stupid). no big deal, i'll shut it down and put it back in. well now i can't boot at all. it gets to the screen where i can choose how to boot (safe mode, etc) and when i choose one it freezes up. i put in the windows xp disc and it loads until it starts windows, then it just freezes again. can someone help me?
 
what else wasn't screwed down? sounds as if you might've shorted something out on the mobo. clear CMOS and try again, but I think you've got a more serious prob.
 
Try double checking all your connections

Go into your BIOS and Reset Configuration Data.
Reset Configuration Data: The Extended System Configuration Data (ESCD) contains information about non-PnP (plug and play) devices. It also remembers the configuration of the system since the last time it was booted. Enable this feature if you want the system to clear this data during the Power-On-Self-Test (POST). This is typically used when diagnosing a piece of hardware that is not working correctly. Once you've Enabled this and exited the BIOS, the data will be cleared, and the setting will automatically be returned to Disabled.

FWIW, I had a similar experience the other day due to an improper defragmentation of my XP partition.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=490719
 
Audioaficionado said:
Try double checking all your connections

Go into your BIOS and Reset Configuration Data.


FWIW, I had a similar experience the other day due to an improper defragmentation of my XP partition.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=490719

Audio,

I'm not familiar with the Ryan VM but I'm reading on their site now. Is this similar to the "Ultimate Boot Disk"? Do you like Ryan better?

I never could figure out UBD entirely and would like something easier. RT
 
RJARRRPCGP said:
You must have stable power before defragmenting!
If you have a black out or a brown out, be prepared for HDD corruption! :mad:

Black outs and brown outs when defragmenting is a catastrophy!
That depends on the defragmenter program. Some are safer than others. Perfectdisk is one of the very best. I also have this computer on a beefy 1200VA UPS so I can flash and defrag with impunity :D

BTW I hate it when the OP never gets back to their thread to give feedback on whether any of the advice we gave worked or not.
 
sorry for not responding earlier. it turns out it didn't freeze when it was loading windows when i booted from the cd. it just took almost 5 minutes to load. i ran the recovery console and i'm pretty sure its all fixed now. i haven't had any problems since then.
 
hanzalo said:
sorry for not responding earlier. it turns out it didn't freeze when it was loading windows when i booted from the cd. it just took almost 5 minutes to load. i ran the recovery console and i'm pretty sure its all fixed now. i haven't had any problems since then.
Good for you but a big fat bummer for me :cry:

I had the exact same thing happen last night but I didn't wait the 5 minutes. Anyway after I switched to a non bootable drive in BIOS, the XP CD loaded right up and I tried the fixboot command and it nuked the file system so that even Vista couldn't access the drive anymore.

I'm using R-Studio in an effort to recover the scraps I might not have gotten around to backing up yet.

BTW FIXBOOT also nuked a Windows 2000 installation the same exact way.
 
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