Can't boot to Windows

[sheemone00]

About a week ago I turned off my desktop and the next day I turned it on, it would never go past the XP boot splash screen.

I reinstalled windows xp pro ( I haven't formatted yet, too much data I don't want to lose!) and I get the same results.

I have tested the video card, the hard drive, and RAM on another machine individually and they all run perfectly fine in the other machine.

Can my mobo or CPU be dead after 4 years? (At least this will give me an excuse to updgrade to Core2 Duo hehe).

Any suggestions to salvage this old heap of junk? I would like to prolong purchasing another computer as long as possible.

 

[wpshooter]

Any of this stuff could go bad in 4 minutes might less 4 years.

BUT, things to consider.

Have you checked your CMOS battery to make sure that it is not weak or dead ? Go into the BIOS and see if you time and date are correct.

Do you know for certain that your power supply is not going on the fritz ?

Could be an overheating problem. Is your CPU fan still working, are all of your other cooling device still working ? Go into the BIOS and check your temperature readouts.

Good luck.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Go to the BIOS and turn off the reboot on error 'feature' then log your boot and check the errors.

 

[Cutthroat]

Visually inspect your motherboard for damage, or bulging or burst capacitors.

 

[JackMDS]

If WinXP starts to the spalsh screen, and or, you could reinstall it, it is the Mobo.

In many cases it means that the OS drivers are Not compatible with the chipset and it can not go beyond the standard Boot.

Edit:

Sorry, I made an omission, it should be.

It is the Not the Mobo.

 

[sheemone00]

UPDATE:

Tested my power supply and it was working all right on another machine.

Looked at the motherboard, but could not see any apparent physical damages. All the capacitors look normal as it should, etc.

CMOS battery is ok. The system time and date were correct.

All the fans are up and running.

Is my motherboard just dead?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Remove CMOS battery. Reseat RAMs. Try another PSU (don't trust SP 400). Run Memtest. If you can re-install windows, then the issue is probably related to a software problem. Zero format the old HDD or try a new HDD.

 

[sheemone00]

When I tried another PSU (Foxconn 350W), the machine wouldn't even boot up at all. I don't even see the initial boot screen. Just blackness.

I have tried to load another HDD that works perfectly fine in another machine, but I get the same results. Windows boot splash screen -> reboot.

I haven't ran Memtest on the memory, but I have used them in another machine and they seem to work fine.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Need to test with a NEW HDD. You can also zero write an old working HDD to remove any software issue. If PC can re-install windows, then the issue is probably related to a software bug.

 

[sheemone00]

I actually reinstalled windows using another machine.

On the machine with the problems, after the first reboot following the initial installation from booting through the Windows XP CD the machine would continuously reset before it could finish installing.

I'm hesitant to zero out this HDD because I haven't backed up the data. I might have a spare HDD somewhere I can zero out and test though. I will try this later tonight.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Still think it's a software issue, followed by a failing PSU.

 

[Peter]

... or bad RAM. www.memtest.org to the rescue.

 

[NesuD]

Boot to recovery console from xp cd and run chkdsk /r. sometimes the filesystem is simply damaged and needs repairing. Had the identical thing going on with my Mothers PC and this fixed it. No guarantees but it is a small thing to do and may just fix it or at least let you get in and back up your important data.