Can only boot using xp boot disk

My system goes to a blank screen after post and then hangs, not going into Windows XP Pro. I can reboot and use an XP Boot Floppy to get into Windows and then everything in Windows works as it should. I need to find out what is causing the stall after post.

 

Do you get an error message, if so what is the exact error?

 

There is no error message. The computer goes to a blank screen immediately after showing the drive configurations on the initial bios startup. If I use a floppy boot disk I can get into Windows with no problem. I have tried to boot to the Windows setup CD and it stalls at the screen that says "Windows Setup". I have run all the anti-virus, anti-malware, and spyware scans and have found nothing. I think there might be an issue with Windows not being able to load a proper video driver. Not sure. Also, I am not able to do a system restore as it says it cannot be done whenever I try it.

 

The XP Startup/Boot Disk contains the following files: ntldr, ntdetect, boot.ini.......

I have already copied these files to the C: drive to replace the existing ones there... figuring that the floppy files are correct and one of the ones on the C: drive is corrupt. This did not help. Perhaps I need to rename the files on the C drive and then copy the ones from the floppy to the C drive. not sure. I cannot get into safe mode without using the floppy. I scanned with SpyBot and Norton AV 2008 last night and they found nothing. These scans were also done in Safe mode.

 

ntldr and ntdetect.com are protected files with the Read_Only attribute set (on the hard disk). When you copied these files from the floppy disk to the hard disk, were you asked if you wanted to over-write the existing files on the hard disk?

Have you checked your boot.ini for proper content as far as the boot hard disk, partition etc?

You could also try the boot.ini rebuild command; bootcfg /rebuild
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980/en-us

 

I checked out the boot.ini file and all was the same as the one on the floppy. Just on a whim I went into the bios settings to check the boot priority. It was as follows: floppy, CDrom, primary hard drive. This has been like this for at least two years... I changed it to force it to boot to the hard drive first, then CDrom, then floppy.. Now I feel very foolish because this was all it took for my system to boot again from the hard drive. I don't know why, but for some reason the bios must have been hanging on the floppy or CDrom and wouldn't allow the c drive to boot in that sequence. So, for now the problem has been solved and all is happy. Thank you all for your help in this matter.

Captain Fun