Pc will not boot into windows

I am having a problem booting into Windows XP. When I turn the PC on it gets past the bios with no errors. Then it as it tries to load Windows it goes to a black screen and goes no further.

If I try to get it to to use the last known good configuration it does the same.

If I try to get it to go to safe mode it starts doing all the writing on the screen until it writes to about a third of the screen then hangs.

I have checked the bios and both hard drives (one is OS and the other is storage only ), DVD player and DVD writer are all being recognised. I have tried loading fail safe defaults. Processor is not overclocked.

The PC is old lol. The drives and players are IDE. I have not made any hardware or jumper changes. I have not installed any new software. It is a legitimate copy of windows. I have not used the PC for about 2 weeks. I am good at keeping my PC free from viruses etc but you never know I may have got a virus.

When doing a safe mode option the PC hangs on the line

Multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS/AppPatch/drvmain.SDB


Any ideas what I can try next?

step by step, or diagnostics mode. in this mode you can select thing that do or do not load.
by the process of erimination you can get a configuration that will get you back into the system often.
and that is usually stopping the loading of 3rd party type drivers.

Psycogeec said:

step by step, or diagnostics mode. in this mode you can select thing that do or do not load.
by the process of erimination you can get a configuration that will get you back into the system often.
and that is usually stopping the loading of 3rd party type drivers.

Click to expand...

I don't get them options (or am I missing something?). I get

Safe mode
Safe mode with networking
Safe mode with Command prompt

Enable boot logging
Enable VGA mode
Last known good configuration
Directory services restore mode
Debugging mode
Disable automatic restart on system failure

Start Windows normally
Reboot
Return to OS choices menu

Debugging.
and i wonder if bootlogging mode would allow selection, i donno, havent been there in a long time.

Try performing a Repair Install...

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

ennogs said:

Multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS/AppPatch/drvmain.SDB

?

Click to expand...

the item that comes right after that is often (but not always) ACPI
so when you get a lockup there, i might wonder if it had something to do with that?

Psycogeec said:

Debugging.
and i wonder if bootlogging mode would allow selection, i donno, havent been there in a long time.

Click to expand...

I tried both and still just get a black screen.

Hmmmmmm. I cannot even get to the repair option. I put the XP CD in and changed the boot order. When the CD starts it seems to take longer than normal to start loading. It then hangs on set up is loading files (kernal debugger dll)...

I have checked the CD is ok on another PC and also tried my back up CD.

i think you have a minor disk problem somewhere., but i cant be sure.
and i dont know what to tell you to try next. can you do a quick check of each disk in another computer, and still get it reassembled without jumper or cabling issues or errors?

oh there was also a indication on the web that the computer might have got hit by a virus. but so many computers already have that, it is hard to tell if that was thier actual problem.

If you have the means, hook up the drive to a running machine and run a check disk from command prompt (CHKDSK x: /f or /r) x: being the drive you hooked up to the machine. If you cant hook the drive up to a running machine try to find a bootable diagnostic CD with a mini windows on it such as Hierens or Hawk PE then do the check disk from there.

Also if you hook up the drive to another machine it might not be a bad idea to download hard disk sentinel to check to make sure you dont have any bad or weak sectors on the drive.

I had to reinstall xp