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Can't load Windows XP after rebooting

A

Andrew111

Senior member
Whenever I restart my main rig, I can never get into Windows XP🙁 If I shut it down and power it right back up, most of the time Windows will load though.....kinda weird. The only drivers I've installed recently are the newest Creative Sound Blaster Audigy drivers, and they've been working just fine for a couple of days. I didn't have this problem at all until I installed Microsoft's Impossible Creatures demo which asked me to restart. I found it odd at the time that the game required Windows to restart(which would mean it changed or added something important to Windows?), call me crazy but all was fine until then.

Whenever I restart, either the monitor will not come back on, or the monitor will turn on, display the screen with info on the boot devices, what key to press to get into BIOS, etc.....after that screen dissapears the monitor will stay on but it won't display anything. My drives spin up and everything just like normal; the only odd thing I noticed was that the hard drive access light remained lit....even if I left the computer for 5 minutes. I don't think this is a hardware problem because when I actually can get into Windows after shutting down and powering back up, it asks me if I want to start Windows normally or use the last known good configuration since a critical error occured before. Everytime I select to start normally, I can't get into Windows. I have to pick last known good config, and sometimes that won't work either.

When I get into Windows, it discovers my Audigy and installs it automatically, but I can't get sound. I think this is happening because the last known good config is the most recent restore point...which was right before my sound card driver update. I'm not too sure the problem is with my sound card, because I uninstalled the sound card, installed the old drivers that worked just fine for over a year, reboot....and I still can't get into Windows unless I select last known good config. When I'm in Windows I have no problems except I can't get sound since it always makes me revert back to that restore point.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Sorry for rambling on and on but I like to be very thorough🙂
System Specs:
AMD Athlon XP 1.33GHz
NVIDIA Geforce3 Ti200
Creative Audigy
Shuttle Kt266a

 
I took out the Audigy and powered up with no problems....restarted a few times and it was just fine. Even when I installed the old drivers it was causing problems....wonder why it wants to act up all of a sudden. I reformatted my hard drive earlier this month....and I had those new Creative drivers installed before with no problems. I think I'm gonna try a spare Philips Acoustic Edge my friend has laying around.
 
Shuttle AK31 Kt266a chipset

I just got done switching my Audigy to a different PCI slot....I don't have problems getting into Windows now....but I still can't get any sound. After switching the PCI slot for the Audigy, the first time booting into Windows it automatically gave the Audigy drivers and didn't ask for the CD. I tried to uninstall those using add/remove programs....and I got a BSOD while doing it. Reboot, try it again, and got it uninstalled, but I got an error saying it couldn't read from a memory address. I installed the drivers from the cd, reboot, no sound still.

I think it may be time for a reformat, unless anyone has a fix that doesn't require a reformat🙂
 
Have you tried just deleting (Uninstalling) the device in the "Device Manager", then rebooting. You should then get prompted that WinXP has found new hardware and it will try to install the correct drivers. You might like to cancel this at this stage so that there is an exclamation mark against the device in the Device Manager, then Installing the drivers that you have downloaded.

Silly, question, but have you made sure the audio cables are connected correctly?. I think most will say that they have made this simple yet common mistake, me included. 😉
 
I made a dumb mistake and installed the drivers from the CD right after uninstalling the other ones. Requires a reboot in between to get it working correctly. Still not out of the woods since my back speakers in my 5.1 setup aren't working. I have 5.1 sound selected....when installing the drivers it didn't give me an option for 5.1 setup...only 2 or 4 speakers, or surround sound. I chose surround sound figuring I'd change it to 5.1 but my back speakers stilll don't work once I changed it.
 
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