Computer/WinXP won't boot

Hi kids,

I've read many of the "computer won't boot" threads and hate to add yet another one, but I don't see my specific problem represented.

Wednesday pm, my computer was working just fine. I shut it down, turned it off.

Last night, I turned it on. The WINDOWS XP logo popped up, the little blue dots scanned.

The screen went blank, then I got the following (paraphrased):

"We apologize for the inconvenience, however Windows could not load properly . There are several reasons this may happen. It lists various reasons like power surge or outage, computer was turned off before it finished logging out, the reset button was accidently pushed, etc.

Start in Safe Mode
Start in Safe Mode with Network
Start in previous session (something to that effect)

Start in Normal Mode

If you don't know why you computer won't reboot, use the Start in Normal Mode option."

Then the screen goes blank and it loops back around to the Windows logo, with the same result every time.

I tried starting in all 4 modes, starting with Normal mode. Same result. However, on one of the start ups, and I'll have to look tonight to see which

one, I get a long scrolling list of drivers at the end before it loops around.
- - -

One thread I read suggested to let it loop for a while, which I will try tonight.

Another thread suggested starting in Safe Mode and let it run all night.

I have two hard drives both with XP, master/slave. I read somewhere that I might possibly be able to switch to boot from the slave if, in fact, the master has died. Is that an option?

I don't have sound so I can't listen for beeps.

I can get into the setup, if that would do any good.

Most of my data is backed up. I'd like to not lose any, though.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

 

Trying to boot from the slave drive won't do any good unless you have an operating system installed on it (like another full install of Windows 98 or 2000 or XP or whatever). Try this: right when you power up the PC, press the F8 key repeatedly until you get a Windows boot options menu. It will be an expanded version of the menu you mentioned above. Select "Disable automatic restart after system failure" and boot. The PC should try to boot, but will eventually stop at a blue screen with an error message and error code; occasionally a particular file name will be listed. We need you to post the error code and the file name (if available). The error code will look like this: "STOP: 0x000000FF (0x0123456789, 0xABCDEFGHJ,.......)" but the numbers and letters will be different. What's been happening is that you are getting an error and it's flashing so fast that you can't see it as Windows tries to restart itself. So, post the error message, error code, and file name (if any) and we'll go from there!

hd2k

 

Thanks, Dave. I tried that. The boot options menu flashes, then the blue screen flashes (neither of which had popped up before) and the whole process begins again.

Yes, I have XP on both hard drives.

 

I read another thread that suggests I make certain all cards and cables are firmly in place. I'll do that tonight.

Any other ideas?

 

Ultimately, there was something buggy about XP. My husband installed a new hard drive and kept the buggy drive as a slave because it has most of my data on it. He seems to think the data is still fine. However, I had password protected XP on that drive.

The question is what, if anything, do I need to do to access the data on that drive? Will I need to put the old password on the new drive XP login? Seems to me I should be able to create a shortcut to that drive and not have to use a password, if I'm already logged into XP from the new drive.

thoughts?

 

anybody?