Greetings,
This is my first time posting, so I hope I am in the right spot. I did read the Forum's troubleshooting guide as well but I think my problem is beyond what is mentioned in there.
I have a Gateway Media Center (842GM). It has windows XP Home edition, 3ghz CPU, 2gb memory, 8600 gts nvidia graphics card, sound blaster, DVD rom, rewrittable rom, hard drive, network card ... etc
I'll start from the very beginning. I recently purchased a game from the store the other day (It comes in CD format). I put the disc in my PC and started the installation. At some point during the installation it came up and told me it couldn't read the game's expansion file. So I went to the game maker's website and they suggested I copy the contents of the discs onto my hard drive, reboot to Safe Mode and install the game manually from there. Which I did without problem. However, when I tried to reboot back into normal windows, that is when I started having problems.
Now my PC won't boot all the way anymore. Upon rebooting, I'll see the "Intel Logo" and the option to enter the BIOS (which doesn't work anymore), then it'll come up and say "We apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this. If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked. If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the power or reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows Normally."
Then it gives the options for: Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration, Start Windows Normally.
If I choose either "Safe Mode", "Safe Mode with Networking" or "Safe Mode with Command Prompt", it'll start listing a bunch of files, for example:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\amdagp.sys
At some point during this process it just stops loading and freezes / sits there and does nothing. I could let it sit for hours until I have to hard boot it.
If I choose "Last Known Good Configuration" it says the following:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CD-ROM. Select "r" at the first screen to start repair"
If I press any key, the PC reboots and the whole things starts in a loop again.
Finally, if I choose "Start Windows Normally" I'll see the windows XP logo and an animated progress bar. After that it loads to a blank screen and just sits there forever until I hard boot the PC.
If I put in my windows repair / recovery CD and reboot it won't work, the computer doesn't read or recognize the disc for some reason. During the boot process I see the CD ROM being accessed however.
Again, pressing F2 during reboot no longer brings up the BIOS. It does nothing, just boots to Safe Mode options.
I do not have a floppy drive, the computer wasn't designed for one. (IE I have no windows boot disk either).
You can press F8 during boot and it will give several options such as the previously mentioned Safe Mode, Last Know Configuration ... etc but they all have the same results.
Also in rare instances I'll get a quick blue flash saying something about a memory dump or something. It goes so quick I can't see what it says. but this doesnt always happen.
I have read on other site forums that this problem could be due to over heating, bad RAM, a bad mother board or the registry just might be corrupt.
As a side note, I don't think it's an overheating problem as the temp in the room is 60 degrees and I did let the system sit over night before I tried booting it up again. It's also been running just fine ever since I got it two months ago.
I don't think it's a video card, CPU or memory issue as the computer does try and boot and I do see video. But then again I don't know a whole lot about computers either.
And I don't think the game caused the problem, I think it was just a coincidence as other people with simular problems hadn't installed a game at all, let alone worked in Safe Mode before it happened.
This computer has no warranty. I didn't purchase it from a store, but from a co-worker. So I am by myself with it.
This is my first time posting, so I hope I am in the right spot. I did read the Forum's troubleshooting guide as well but I think my problem is beyond what is mentioned in there.
I have a Gateway Media Center (842GM). It has windows XP Home edition, 3ghz CPU, 2gb memory, 8600 gts nvidia graphics card, sound blaster, DVD rom, rewrittable rom, hard drive, network card ... etc
I'll start from the very beginning. I recently purchased a game from the store the other day (It comes in CD format). I put the disc in my PC and started the installation. At some point during the installation it came up and told me it couldn't read the game's expansion file. So I went to the game maker's website and they suggested I copy the contents of the discs onto my hard drive, reboot to Safe Mode and install the game manually from there. Which I did without problem. However, when I tried to reboot back into normal windows, that is when I started having problems.
Now my PC won't boot all the way anymore. Upon rebooting, I'll see the "Intel Logo" and the option to enter the BIOS (which doesn't work anymore), then it'll come up and say "We apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this. If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked. If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the power or reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows Normally."
Then it gives the options for: Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration, Start Windows Normally.
If I choose either "Safe Mode", "Safe Mode with Networking" or "Safe Mode with Command Prompt", it'll start listing a bunch of files, for example:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\amdagp.sys
At some point during this process it just stops loading and freezes / sits there and does nothing. I could let it sit for hours until I have to hard boot it.
If I choose "Last Known Good Configuration" it says the following:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original setup CD-ROM. Select "r" at the first screen to start repair"
If I press any key, the PC reboots and the whole things starts in a loop again.
Finally, if I choose "Start Windows Normally" I'll see the windows XP logo and an animated progress bar. After that it loads to a blank screen and just sits there forever until I hard boot the PC.
If I put in my windows repair / recovery CD and reboot it won't work, the computer doesn't read or recognize the disc for some reason. During the boot process I see the CD ROM being accessed however.
Again, pressing F2 during reboot no longer brings up the BIOS. It does nothing, just boots to Safe Mode options.
I do not have a floppy drive, the computer wasn't designed for one. (IE I have no windows boot disk either).
You can press F8 during boot and it will give several options such as the previously mentioned Safe Mode, Last Know Configuration ... etc but they all have the same results.
Also in rare instances I'll get a quick blue flash saying something about a memory dump or something. It goes so quick I can't see what it says. but this doesnt always happen.
I have read on other site forums that this problem could be due to over heating, bad RAM, a bad mother board or the registry just might be corrupt.
As a side note, I don't think it's an overheating problem as the temp in the room is 60 degrees and I did let the system sit over night before I tried booting it up again. It's also been running just fine ever since I got it two months ago.
I don't think it's a video card, CPU or memory issue as the computer does try and boot and I do see video. But then again I don't know a whole lot about computers either.
And I don't think the game caused the problem, I think it was just a coincidence as other people with simular problems hadn't installed a game at all, let alone worked in Safe Mode before it happened.
This computer has no warranty. I didn't purchase it from a store, but from a co-worker. So I am by myself with it.
) Now you can see how I got 7 thousand posts.
