Windows won't open past Windows XP splash screen

[Freman]

Anyone know what I can do? I ran a virus scan in Safe Mode, didn't help, ran Registry Mechanic, didn't do anything.

I may have to run recovery console, thing is I don't have my Windows XP set up discs anymore. Anyone know a way around this?

Computer was working fine until I downloaded AVG Free 9.0. I installed it then it asked for the obligatory "computer must reboot before changes are made" thing, and then it wouldn't reboot.

HELP!!!

 

[Noname Given]

Have you tried uninstalling the AVG Free software in safe mode, and seeing if the PC will boot?

 

[Freman]

Yeah, that didn't do anything either.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Had you done anything to the registry prior to this?

Even running a registry "cleaner" or defrag can mess things up enough, somehow, to do things like this.

 

[Freman]

Nope. Not a thing.

Like I said i ran the registry mecahnic program from Safe Mode after it crashed, but that's it.

System restore didn't fix it either.

 

[Australis]

Silly question I know, but does it run in Safe Mode? Sounds like it does, and if so it may still be retrievable.

But no joy with System Restore is a bit of a worry.

Check your RAM. See how much the system says is there and it's using. That's all I can think of.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If you can boot into safe mode but it's freezing up on a normal boot, I'd bet you money you have a bad device.

If your system is under warranty, take it in to get checked out.

If it is not warranted, open it up and start removing unnecessary hardware. Take out sound cards, unplug optical drives, that sort of thing. If you have multiple RAM chips, get it down to one, and see if it will boot with just one of them in there--swap them out and see if you get different results.

I've seen bad video cards, sound cards, disk drives, and RAM cause mysterious boot freezes.

And if it does boot up once you've removed a specific card, don't panic. Just carefully reseat the card and try it again. If it still won't boot, then the card is probably bad, but at least this way you can tell if it was just seated poorly.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Sounds like a problem I had to take my PC into a service centre with a few months back. Right down to happening after I'd installed anti-virus software.

1GB RAM Chip had blown and I needed a new one fitting. I have no PC repair experience, so the faulty part cost me £34 (British pounds) and £65 for it be fitted. Felt like a rip off, but I've had no problems since the part was installed. I'm always cautious making changes to the computer these days even software, because with my luck that's when something tends to go badly wrong.

I too use XP and will probably hold off getting Windows 7 until I get a new PC or laptop with it already pre-installed.

 

[Deks]

I have encountered this kind of issue before.
Safe mode was working, but standard mode did not because the computer kept freezing during the booting sequence.
Usually it was associated with a bad device.
In that particular instance, it was the Wifi.

If you are using the Wifi, go into Safe Mode, open device manager and turn off the Wifi ... or potentially other communication devices (such as a modem and whatnot) to see if that will resolve the booting issue.

If it doesn't, you could always try to reinstall the OS from scratch ... or if the HDD is the one to blame, then the clean install will only be a temporary solution until the problem re-appears and quite possibly wrecks everything else.

My advice would be to salvage your critical data using Safe mode at once, just to be on the safe side, and then play around with everything else.

You can also try system restore from Safe mode (which should work).

 

[Trekker4747]

Someone's going to have to help me remember how to do this, but there used to be a way to boot Windows up "line by line" where the computer would prompt you with a "Yes or No?" option for every file/device it wanted to load. This was helpful in-that it allowed you to see which one was hanging up the computer -to better isolate the problem.

AH!

Here it is.

Get into Safe Mode, click on "Start" then "Run" and in the prompt type "msconfig."

In the System Configuration Utility window select "Diagnostic Startup", "Apply" and then "Close" you should be prompted to reboot, do so. When the computer reboots it should ask you a "Y/N" question for each and every thing it wants to load. Click yes on everything, making not of them, you should then be able to tell what is hanging up the system.

 

[Freman]

Thanks for all the help, everyone. I got it running again.

 

[Australis]

And the solution was...?