Windows XP Home Not Booting

[JaketheJew]

Hey,

Yesterday my computer decided it had enough of working. Out of the blue I turned it on and Windows loaded to the log-in screen then the screen went black so I turned it off. Then I powered the PC back on and got to the usual (Start Windows Normally) screen. I pressed enter, then it just froze. I then tried to use every setting to start it up, even waiting for the timer to finish. It just stops at 0 and freezes, or freezes when I enter an option.

My computer was working just fine the day before and I am almost positive it isn't a virus because I ran a scan 3 days ago. I have absolutely no clue why it is acting like this and would prefer if I didn't have to re-install Windows and lose everything.

My computer is about 3 years old, and is running Windows XP Home Edition.

Off the top of my head some of the specs are:
8800GS 320MB Video Card
Intel Q6600 CPU
Gigabyte Motherboard
4GB RAM

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Harvey]

Possiblities:

1. You could still have a virus/spyware infection. A lot of viruses attack the AV programs, themselves, but they leave them running to give you a false sense of security. One clue some leave is that they make the system appear that it is still able to update, but the date/time stamp of the update doesn't progress.

Once you determine that a drive is infected, you can never be certain that it is all removed. My personal first choice for dealing with known infections is to re-install Windows on another drive and, AFTER installing fresh protection software, connect the original drive as a slave and boot to safe mode to transfer critical files. If you're as paranoid as I am, you'd also Ghost the fresh install to yet another drive before that in case the old drive infects the new installation.

2. Your hard drive is failing or some connection is dirty. Open up your machine, and unplug and reseat the RAM, the vid card, any other plug in cards and the cable from the motherboard to the hard drive.

If your hard drive is PATA, while you're at it, run your finger along the tops of the contact pins on the hard drive before reconnecting it to the cable. Don't ask me why this works. I'm an electrical engineer, and I don't know, but I know that it has corrected problems for me many times on many machines when all else has failed.

3. Open up your machine, and check the electrolytic capacitors on your motherboard and vid card. They're the tall, cylindrical components, usually with an aluminum top area. If you find any that are bulging or domed, or if there is any evidence of leakage around the bottom, the mobo or vid card is toast.

Electrolytic capacitors can be replaced, but only if you're experienced AND you're lucky --

Experienced because you have to be good enough at soldering and unsoldering to have a chance of not damaging the board when removing the old ones and to know how to qualify various brands and models of capacitors to make sure the ones you get will meet or exceed the manufacturer's requirements.

Lucky because, if they're mounted by wire leads going through holes in the board, even if you're very good at electronic assembly. unsoldering and removing them can damage inner layers of the board that can't be accessed for repair.

If you have bulging caps on your vid card, try another one. If they're on your motherboard, it's probably cheaper and less work to replace it, although that will probably require a fresh installation of Windows.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[JaketheJew]

I performed option 2 and the computer would still not boot up. I then installed a new hard drive and am trying to install windows. The computer is hanging up at the boot screen when windows gets to the point where it wants to reboot the machine. I'm starting to think this is a motherboard issue. Would you agree? Thanks.