just overnight, my laptop (Win XP Pro) has started hanging on boot at "windows is starting" screen. Sometimes gets through to login screen where there is no functionality.. I can get in in safe mode and so i tried system restore - nogo. Tried "last known good config" - nothing doing.

Further developments. I used my XP disk to get into recovery console and ran chkdsk /r - it ran for about 8 hours and still only reached 53% ! Just for the hell of it I rebooted and lo and behold I could login. Things were OK for about a week and then the same old problem re-occurred. IE. get so far into the boot and then there's a quick flash of the blue screen of death and then automatically tries to reboot. I ran chkdsk again and again it hung around 50% - I rebooted and got into windows again. Can anyone explain what is going on here?

Hi,
Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine...it goes without saying but do please check that your backup/archive/copy of all your important stuff is 100% up to date accurate and reproducible and kept safe on removable media....if you are in any doubt about it copy off anything that is important to you and which could be troublesome to you if it was permanently lost. just to be on the safe side...

If you can't get your machine to a state where you can do this, then post back here for instructions on slaving your hard drive to another computer, using an external case or IDE/SATA>--USB connector and power supply or using a Linux live CD to boot,,enabling USB support, mounting your hard drive, and copying off your stuff. Take full personal safety and ESD precautions (antistatic) when opening machines........ if you are not 100% certain of requirements....... just ask.

it is possible that you have a hardware problem and that could include the possibility of your hard drive failing...

This problem may be difficult to diagnose from afar but try this first with a safely switched off machine, remove any peripherals, printers USB devices, scanners, routers modems etc (unplug them):
the idea is to have the minimum connected just a power lead, VDU lead, mouse and keyboard, nothing else at all
1 if you can get into Windows, by any means..

1. Click Start > Control Panel
2. Go to System and Maintenance, Click on System.
3. Select Advanced System Settings > Advance tab.
4. Under Startup and Recovery, click on Settings.
5. Under System failure uncheckmark/untick Automatically restart.

6 Go to Start>Run
7 in the white box type
chkdsk
8 please do not use any switches (ie don't type chkdsk /r)
9 click OK when prompted...... allow a restart
10 If you get a "blue screen of death" write down the error codes and post back here with them.
11 if not allow chkdsk to run to the end
12 Close down and Restart your machine (if you can, still with the minimum stuff connected to it)
13 Now re run chkdsk, but this time with the R switch
chkdsk /r
allow the restart as it will be required...you may need to do this 3 or 4 times, you are after a complete set of 5 passes with 2 consecutive runs showing no errors,,,,,keep repeating until you have achieved it....hopefully it will take considerably less than 8 hours per run this time!
14 if its still all working then with your Microsoft Windows XP installation disc handy (it may be needed) go to:
15 Start>Run
and type in the white box
sfc /scannow
the space after the c and before the / is necessary
16 click OK
17 the scan should not take longer than 20 minutes or so.
18 if asked, insert your installation disc (Microsoft Windows XP) not a manufacturers Recovery disc so that any damaged or missing protected system files can be copied from the disc to the dll cache.
18 you may need to run this scan 2 or 3 times with a close down and then a restart in between each run.
19 if so far so good..... then you can download your hard drive manufacturer's drive checking utilities and check on its health...if you get error codes please post back with them.
20 next you can start adding back your peripherals, but please only one at a time and thoroughly test you machine with each one with several restarts and some heavy work before a final restart and moving to the next one (if you install several things quickly we will not know which one is the troublemaker, in the event of problems.)
21 That should be enough to be going on with, so let us know how you go.
Regards
paws
EDIT I have just noticed this is a laptop so ignore please

but whilst your machine is fully switched off, remove the battery and run it on mains only but using your usual power supply box...nothing else connected, all cd drive, slots and USB ports empty......


This post has been edited by paws: Jul 19 2008, 01:43 AM