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XP Pro Boot Problem

3 min read

This thread's last reply is from . Advice, software, and links below may be out of date — treat specific steps and download links with caution.

Post #1
I have posted about this before, but I lost my email again, after this problem. I have been in IT for over 20 years. My problem is that after I downloaded and installed Hijack This, for the first time, and posted my first scan on this site, I rebooted to a Black Screen with a blinking cursor. I booted with the Norton Ghost 10 CD, that I use to backup my PC, and I restored from the last backup. Everything was fine for a day or so, but after a couple of reboots, back to the blinking cursor. I put the drive in another machine and I had no problem reading from it. I put it back as the C drive in the original machine and restored, again, from the last backup. Everything was OK for a couple of days and then, after several reboots, back to the blinking cursor. I bought a new 300Gb hard drive and restored, again, from the same last backup. Back to the blinking cursor. I restored, this time, from the second last backup and the machine booted up fine. It worked fine for at least 3 weeks. I was advised, by this site, that Hijack This could not have caused this problem. I had only done a scan and not taken any action other than posting the log file on this site. Since the machine was running fine I assumed that the problem was caused by another problem, although, I had scanned the drive, in my other computer, with both Norton Internet jSecurity 2006 and the latest version of SpySweeper and found no problems. Confident that the machine was working fine, I reinstalled Hijack This. After the next boot, back to the blinking cursor. This time, I not only could not boot from the HD, but I could not boot from the Norton Ghost CD or the XP Pro CD. Once again, the drive read fine on another machine. I put it in an external USB Hard Drive case, as before. My PC is an IBM 1.8Ghz P4. The only way I could even boot from a CD was to either disconnect the IDE HD, or put the HD in another machine and repartition it. When I put the repartitioned drive back in the original PC, I was able to reboot from the Ghost CD and restore from backup. I scanned the Hijack This.zip and the Hijack This.exe and it does not seem to be infected. I am frankly afraid to reinstall Hijack This, downloaded from any site, until I am sure that it will not crash my machine again. Is there any type of virus, worm, malware, or anything else that could have been hidden in the Hijack This download that would cause this problem after Hijack This is installed? Does anyone know why a PC would not boot from either two of the CD drives, as long as the HD was connected, until the HD was repartitioned? I repartitioned the drive, while it was in the external USB HD box, on the other machine, using Disk Manager
Post #2
i think maybe your ghost image has an issue. i have never seen hijack this cause any problems. have u tried to rebuild from scratch and then run hi jack this? have u taken the exact same hijack this file and ran it on another computer? did it cause the same black screen result? to me it either boils down to something in your hardware or your ghost backup.