Stuck on endless boot cycle

[Mychael]

My XP machine (after running fine last night with normal shutdown) now is stuck in a re-boot loop.
It gets as far as the XP logo with progress bar then goes into a re-boot again.

Just the other day was checking HDD drive for errors and all was fine.

Any ideas?

Mychael

 

[Fire cat]

Try booting into safe mode.
We may be able to resolve the problem from there.

Did you do anything in particular before the cycle began?

Ok, so if you manage to get into safe mode you have a few choices:
- Do a system restore to before the problems.
- Try to identify the problem using msconfig, for example.
As a last resort:
- Try to do a Repair Instal using the install DVD of XP.

Though, if you do do a repair, be carefull as it is not as easy as in 7. Will try to find a good tutorial.


Cheers,
Fire Cat

 

[Mychael]

Not as such. Ran a disk check a few days ago but since then nothing at all. just normal startups and shutdowns.

HOWEVER, the previous week had to swap my HHD onto another Sata controllor as that was playing up, could be a dying M/b although this seems more like an O/S thing to me or a corrupted entry in the system.

I'll try to get into safe mode


I can select SAFE mode but it wont complete. Goes into the same re-boot cycle again.

 

[plaster]

Hi Mychael
Have you recently installed SP3
This happend to the lads pc and what i did was restart the system with the windows disc and did a repair because ours did the same.

I would go with the first few options fire cat said before doing the repair.

 

[Mychael]

No go on the SAFE mode as per my last post. It wont get to boot up in safe mode either. Had SP3 installed for cant remember how long, never had an issue.

Really no major changes for ages apart from having to put my HDD into another SATA port on the M/B but even that was some weeks ago.

 

[sdmnysimon]

have you tired selecting Last Known Good Configuration

 

[Veedaz]

And if the above don't help try this > Go into your BIOS and make sure that your 1st boot device is set to your Optical Drive. Then Insert your windows cd and boot from it. At the first option menu press the "r" key on your keyboard this will take you to a black screen. If it asks which windows do you want to repair and it gives you an option to press 1. Press 1 on the keyboard. After that it will ask for an username, press "Enter" and then"Enter" again. Then where the cursor is flashing type in: chkdsk /r and press enter. It will take about an hour maybe longer. when it's done type in the following: fixmbr and press enter. If it prompts do you want to replace it say yes, Windows will inform you that your MBR has being rewritten, then type exit and hit enter to exit. Go back to BIOS and set as normal.

 

[Fire cat]

have you tired selecting Last Known Good Configuration

Maybe that will work. Though, if he can't even boot into safe mode, I don't know how he's going to boot like that.

I found this good tutorial on a repair install:
www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Hope this helps,
Fire Cat

 

[Mychael]

And if the above don't help try this > Go into your BIOS and make sure that your 1st boot device is set to your Optical Drive. Then Insert your windows cd and boot from it. At the first option menu press the "r" key on your keyboard this will take you to a black screen. If it asks which windows do you want to repair and it gives you an option to press 1. Press 1 on the keyboard. After that it will ask for an username, press "Enter" and then"Enter" again. Then where the cursor is flashing type in: chkdsk /r and press enter. It will take about an hour maybe longer. when it's done type in the following: fixmbr and press enter. If it prompts do you want to replace it say yes, Windows will inform you that your MBR has being rewritten, then type exit and hit enter to exit. Go back to BIOS and set as normal.

Thanks, I'll give that a go and report back in a few hours.

Mike

 

[Mychael]

No go I'm afraid. It all worked but on re-boot I got:
STOP: c000021a {Fatal] System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000026c (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has been shutdown.

All written on a pretty blue screen. :-(

 

[Fire cat]

No go I'm afraid. It all worked but on re-boot I got:
STOP: c000021a {Fatal] System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000026c (0x00000000 0x00000000).
The system has been shutdown.

All written on a pretty blue screen. :-(

Sorry Mycheal, but I have a bad feeling about that. Try redoing what Veedaz said, and if that doesn't work, I think your gona have to do a reinstall.
Put the HD in an other computer, or use a Linux Live CD to access and backup your data.

 

[Mychael]

Yep, pita. No warning of HDD failure if that is what it is. Might hand it over to my tame geek and see if he can recover it onto a new HDD.

 

[sdmnysimon]

try this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156669

 

[Fire cat]

try this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156669

Hum... I've had a look at it, and I found a problem... The OP can't boot into windows! He won't be able to enter the commands.

Sorry...

 

[sdmnysimon]

yea thats right. took a look for a second time

 

[Fire cat]

yea thats right. took a look for a second time

Yep....
So a reinstall it is Mycheal. Weird though... Are you sure you didn't do anything before the "reboot cycle of DOOM!"?

 

[Mychael]

Nope all was good. Apart from as I'd said a fortnight ago having to swap onto another SATA controllor. That was a different problem though as then my system HDD had disappeared.

This time it was literally fine the day before, normal shutdown at night and the trouble the next day.

 

[catilley1092]

A fresh reinstall should clear things up, if that doesn't hold up for long, then you have serious troubles. In the case of my old laptop, the hard drive was failing. It was dropping critical files. So I tried a Ubuntu install on it, it ran for a day or two, then finally died.

 

[Mychael]

What I've done to get me by is install Mint 8 on the other HDD. WOW!! Last Mint version I used was 6, version 8 is fantastic.It can even run my Canon printer something version 6 could never do, it automatically looked for a Canon driver to download.
It's seen all my devices except that they have to turned on before boot -up as it wont plug and play like windows. I'm enjoying it.

I'm going to give my main system drive to my tame geek, hopefully he can get it running and do a full copy onto a new HDD although this is a pain as I'm trying to get everything together for my WIN7 conversion.

For now Linux Mint is doing what I need.

 

[Mychael]

Had my techy mate up last night.We ran WD disk diagnostics on the drive (It's a WD drive) and all came up with no errors?? Despite that cannot get it to boot into the O/S.
We tried the drive in different ports, nothing worked so he's taken it away with him to see what he can do to save/clone it.

We'll buy either a WD500g Cavier Green for $65 or a WD black for $69. Apparently the green runs cooler but the black has a 5yr warranty.

It's a nuisance as these were not the drives I was planning to buy for my new system but I need to keep my XP machine running a bit longer. Till I've got everything I need and am ready to make the re-build swap.

In the interim my Linux on the spare drive in the PC and Macs are keeping me online.