windows xp hangs on startup

last night we blew a fuse in the apartment while the computer was running. reset the breaker and went to bed. tried to turn on the computer today and windows started booting up from the splash screen then went to black and wouldn't go any further. tried starting in safe mode, without networking, command prompt, etc. with no luck. its a dell dimension 8250 running windows xp sp3. tried windows recovery console to repair but that also froze after selecting 1.

 

The file system was probably corrupted. I think downloading a copy of recovery console and writing it to CD would be the best bet.

Here is the file. You need to write it to CD as an image file. Imgburn's "Write Image File to Disc" option will work. Guide: http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=61

Then boot from the CD and enter recovery console. At the command prompt run a chkdsk c: /r to look for and correct errors in the file system. Then try to boot normally.

 

If you have had the computer for a very long time, it is possible that the hard drive is finally going out, which can also cause the hanging at the startup. Since drives are very cheap right now, I would go for a newer one.

There are tools like the Linux Live CD's, that you can use to boot up with and run a S.M.A.R.T. or drive health test to see if the drive is going bad.

 

Thanks for the reply

Is this different than the recovery console that I already tried? ill give it a shot if i can get the cd burner on my other computer to work and reply with the results. thanks again!

 

could blowing a fuse cause the hard drive to go out like that if the computers on? we have had it for probably around 10 years give or take, but I really hope I don't have to buy a new hard drive. id be open to suggestions as to which to buy though. i really dont wanna lose anything i have on the drive but a lot of it has been backed up anyway.

I'll look into this right away, thanks!

 

It is the same recovery console but I am guessing that the corruption on the HD is also effecting the recovery console.

Running recovery console from CD should work.

It is also possible to connect the problem HD to the other computer internally and then run chkdsk on that HD from Windows but burning the CD is easier if you have one available.

Edit: A 10 year old HD is way past its life expectancy but power failures/improper shutdowns often result in the type of hangs you describe. A chkdsk /r should get you up and running for now.

 

SSD drives have dropped way down in price. Platter drives are cheaper than ever, especially with the sales this weekend. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600003442&IsNodeId=1&name=IDE%20Ultra%20ATA100%20%2f%20ATA-6 The sad thing is, you can get a SATA drive cheaper than a PATA drive these days.

 

burned recovery console and ran chkdsk. it did its thing and i was able to restart and load windows again hurrah! it said the registry was successfully repaired. once again majorgeeks has managed to rescue my girlfriends computer. you guys are like the cesar milan of pcs and i owe you a debt of gratitude. i have a follow-up question though. i checked in the event viewer and an error showed up saying the hd has a bad block. obviously the old girl aint no spring chicken anymore. what do you think i should do? as cheap as new hard drives are, i wouldnt know which to get and i would be more inclined to buy a whole new pc all together before throwing any money into an aging machine. on the other hand shes served well over the years and my gut instinct is shes got a little more life in her yet. if theres anyway to work around a few little bruises on her hard drive id like to go that route. any thoughts would be appreciated. thanks SO much

 

A single bad block is not a big deal. What you could do is run chkdsk again in a week or so and see if in the results it shows any files in bad sectors. You can schedule a chkdsk from within Windows by going to My Computer and right-click the C: drive and select Properties. Under the Tools tab hit the Check Now button. In the window that opens leave the first box ticked and hit Start button. It will schedule for next boot up. With only the first box ticked it should only take a few minutes. When you reboot check the final results for the line in Bad Sectors and see if it is greater than zero. If it is zero you are good and it was just a fluke caused by the power failure. If it is greater than zero, run chkdsk again in a few days and see if the number increases--that would signal a failing drive.

http://www.modernstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/how-to-run-chkdsk.jpg

 

Everything was working ok, now when I boot up I get an error that says:

"Warning: Dell's Disk Monitoring System has detected that drive 0 on the primary EIDE controller is operating outside of normal specifications. It is advisable to immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive by calling your support desk or Dell Computer Operator.

Strike F1 to continue, or F2 for setup utility."

I've read sometimes this error message is incorrect, but I don't know how to be 100% certain

 

I usually take that pretty seriously.

Go to My Computer and right-click the C: drive and select Properties. Under the hardware tab it will list your devices. One should start with WD or ST for the model number of your HD. Western Digital or Seagate/Maxtor.

Get their Windows version diagnostic program and run both the Short and Long test. See if it passes either or both. http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

If it fails the Windows version, I know the WD DOS version will try to repair a Western Digital drive but I don't know if Seagate's will attempt repairs. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.

And I'll just say that it is probably best to seriously consider a new HD now rather than later. You don't want an unstable drive for your OS as you never know the day it won't boot and will wish you had addressed it right away. Check with your GF as to if she needs any type of backup of important data too.

 

the hard drive is western digital. i ran the short test and it failed due to errors about 3 seconds into it. im running the long test now, it wont be done for maybe a half hour. ive read that these errors can sometimes be erroneous in several models including my dimension 8250 and can be fixed by downloading the R64013.EXE patch from the dell support site. i downloaded it and unfortunately it just tells you to unzip the file and follow further instructions, which of course arent provided and i cant find anywhere for some reason.

 

The good luck is that it is WD as their DOS diagnostic can try to repair errors. Let's see what the extended test says.

It looks like that R64013 is only for Hitachi HD. There are instructions if you scroll down but since you have a WD HD it is not applicable.

 

ran long test and it found errors and attempted to repair. the repair failed though, im not sure what happened but i right clicked the drive and selected "show SMART disk info" and the raw read error rate has 198 under value in red. im guessing thats not good

 

I've never figured out how to read SMART information. The layout of that information is confusing to me. But a failed short test means the SMART status is bad, coupled with the Dell message that is also getting a bad SMART status means the HD is failing.

It seems odd that you never had those errors before the power surge. Perhaps a coincidence but still odd. The HD is definitely past its life expectancy.

I'm not sure what to tell you. I agree that it may be time for a new computer. I would say just get a new HD and you can use it later in a new computer as extra storage but this computer needs an IDE interface HD and a new computer will want a SATA interface HD, so they are not compatible. I guess that decision depends on how your finances are doing.

That aside did the end of the long test give you a final error code about the status of the drive? http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/errorcodes.asp

If you have another blank CD you could get the DOS version of the WD Diagnostic and try running that one. It will have more access to the HD and try to fix errors more vigilantly. I have had success with that program on many WD HD. The last one I "fixed" required running the Windows version of the long test then the DOS version then the Windows version then finally the DOS version again to double check. It went from an irrecoverable error to a "fixed" HD and I have been unable to find and error on it for 6 months. Just a personal anecdote and not necessarily recommended because I am only using the drive for storage not as my primary boot drive.

If you have a CD you can download the ISO file and burn as you did with the recovery console using imgburn and the "write image file to disc" option. Then boot from the CD and run the long test. See if it can fix any errors.

 

sorry for the delay in my reply, been a bit busy. i burned and booted the dos version of the diagnostic tool. it found errors and repaired them, then rebooted and scan disk ran and it repaired some stuff and so far so good. the error report it gave me this time was "223 Errors Repaired Errors found, but have been repaired successfully. There were media errors that were within the repair capabilities of diagnostic utility. The drive should now be defect free. Test complete Defect Free" thanks again for all the help. ill see what happens with it in the next few days

 

i wanted to clarify that 223 was the error code, not the number of errors. sorry bout the sloppy copy/paste job

 

That's good, best outcome possible. If no problems for a week or so then I would go ahead and run either Windows or DOS version of both tests just to make sure you are still error free. If it passes both again you should be good to go. Maybe the power failure caused an error in a very basic part of the disc that chkdsk couldn't access?