Hi guys,

I've got a computer with Windows XP Home SP2 on it, I think it's a P4 processor, with 100GB HDD, 1.5GB RAM and a low spec nVidea graphics card (no EMBEDDED graphics).

Right the problem is:

The computer intermittenly won't load Windows. By this I mean it goes through POST, and to the point where Windows loads (that splash screen with the bar at the bottom), but after a SHORT while the picture goes BLACK, as it would when the next thing you would see is the "Welcome" splash screen, and it just stays black.

It won't even load to safe mode now.

It's kind of odd as I had it working and re-booted it 6-7 times to check it was ok, but now nothing.

It'll boot to liveCD's just fine, so I'm assuming the error is within the Windows loading processes or the HDD?

Anyway, here's what I've done so far:

I got it booted fine once, so I put a Windows Home CD in and ran sfc /scannow.

Then I went through re-booting it lots to make sure the once wasn't a fluke.

I took it back to my friend, plugged it back in, and it booted fine. Then I edited some stuff in MSCONFIG, and now it won't boot again.

When I edited the stuff with MSCONFIG I double checked all the processes I was stopping, so I highly doubt that this is the cause, but I could be wrong...

Oh, after this I went through trying to repair install via the Windows CD, but it froze in the recovery console, so I hard re-booted, and got no joy after that.

I also tried a few liveCDs like Ubuntu and The Ultimate Boot Disk.

One thing I did notice is it was quite warm to the touch inside the case, that being both the graphics card, and the HDD.

So like I said, I think the issue is within the loading process of Windows, or the HDD it's self.

Any ideas? Can an HDD overheat, and then be only "quite warm" to the touch???



HELP guys!!!

Thanks,

Sid
When you say you "took it to a friends" and it booted fine are you saying you're swapping this XP drive from one machine to another ? ?
This may be the issue as XP is not designed for this.
You'll need to list what services you have disabled as well...Hey Sid,

Often this type of issue is associated with the HDD. Although it's a little different because usually it wont even get into Windows, however at this point I'm still leaning towards HDD. What could be happening is that the drive is failing or not "spinning" up fast ENOUGH to read the information from the hard drive causing it to not load.

You may want to see if your computer and the HDD supports S.M.A.R.T and if so that it's enabled. Often you can find this through the CMOS setup. If available and disabled, try enabling it, it should be able to detect this type of hard drive failure.

Otherwise I'd suggest trying to scandisk the HDD and see if it detects any issues.

The reason I come to this conclusion is because a software issue does not resolve itself by simply rebooting the computer. That type of issue is almost always caused by a failing hardware component.

Quote from: patio on February 23, 2008, 08:47:21 AM

When you say you "took it to a friends" and it booted fine are you saying you're swapping this XP drive from one machine to another ? ?
This may be the issue as XP is not designed for this.
You'll need to list what services you have disabled as well...

I know XP isn't designed to do it, but would anything detrimental happen if I try to boot MY system with THEIR hdd?

The directory branch doesn't look quite right to me...the i386 folder is in another folder called:"5a7304ede8df6b1ce0e309"

Quote

The directory branch doesn't look quite right to me...the i386 folder is in another folder called:"5a7304ede8df6b1ce0e309"

Sounds as if there were HDD errors and the directory structure was rebuilt...i'd back up the Data you need then run the diagnostics suggested ASAP.

...Which diagnostics?