Computer startup problem

Hello everyone

Today when I turned on my computer the following happened

1)Initial BIOS screen came up....everything was fine
2)Verifying DMI Pool Data......
3)Screen goes blank!!!!

After step 2 the screen went black. Monitor was on but there was nothing on display.
I rechecked all cables, removed them and put them togather but still the problem persisted. I also waited for around 30 minutes for the blank screen to go but it also didnt helped. I checked BIOS and ram and hard disk both were being detected.


One importnat thing to note here is that recently trhere has been a lot of load shedding in my city. Load shedding means that electricity going on and off.

What do you guys think is the problem and the solution?
please help me asap coz i cant use my computer and its very difficult to maintain my daily routine

no overclocking of any sort has been done on my PC

My PC specs are given below

Amd 64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo2 Plat
1 GB Dual Channel Corsair XMS PC3200
eVGA e-GeForce 6800GT 256MB
80 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA
LG CD-RW/DVD Combo
Macron 400W PSU
Sony 21" Multiscan G500

 

Boot your pc from the Windows CD to windows recovery console.

If and only if your partition is FAT32 enter fixboot at the command prompt.

Then if FAT32 or NTFS

Enter the command fixmbr

enter the command exit

If you need more help post again.

Studio T

 

my HD has 3 partitions and all are NTFS
should i still proceed with this method?
plus will i lose any data?

I also didnot understood wht u wrote(shld I go to recovery onsole or type fixmbr?)....can u please write again keepingin mind that my HD has NTFS partitions

thnks alot for ur tiem

 

If the pc goes blackscreen straight after post (like yours) the chances are you have a corrupt master boot record (MBR).
You can repair this from outside windows using the tools provided on the windows cd i.e. the recovery console.
To access the recovery console
Boot the pc from the windows cd (set boot priorities in bios to cd first)
watch the screen
at the prompt press any key to boot from cd hit the space bar
at the welcome screen press R (first screen)
this takes you to the recovery console which displays a list of operating systems (not partitions)
select the right one by typing its number press enter
you are asked for a password
enter any administrator password or press enter if you have none
the command prompt is displayed

typein

fixmbr press enter

You may get an error message here due to a bug in some issues of Windows, ignore it and proceed.

That's it

typein exit
to exit to restart.

let us know how you get on

Studio T

 

my pc has 2 OS on it. C: had winXP and D: had vista. Vista was a beta release and wasnt working(had some limit on it which expired)

in the recovery console it was only showing D:windows(which obviously meant vista). anyways that didnt worked out and i decided to install a new winXP on E: and then copy my data from C: and then format all my HD again. It turns out that during this process the setup carried out some maintainace work on my HD and when my PC resatarted(by the setup) the MBR was fixed and my original winXP started working.
NOw a new problem arose.

The winXP loading screen came up but after that computer restarts automatically. i tried alot of time but each time after loading screen the computer restarts. Once a BSOD also came up momentarily after loading but then disappeared and pc restarted.....

help again plz!!!

 

Go to the advanced boot options screen (safe mode etc) by repeatedly tapping F8.

Choose to disable automatic restart on system failure.

This should halt the system at the bsod.

Post the error reported it should refer to a program or driver and contain something like

stop error 0 x 000 000 7A


You didn't mention other drives, are these partitions on the same drive? If not disconnect the other drives until you have got the basic one working.

Studio T

 

no I have only 1 drive which has 3 partitions.

Anyways I tried alot of time(pressing F8.....even tried all other F8 keys). I tried alot of combinations. Pressed F8 from POST screen till end, pressed in when the winxp loading bar comes and God know how many times but the menu(which contains launch windows in safe mode, or last known good configuartion etc) never came up!

Now what? Please guys help me out as I am very much confused and i have very important data on my windows

BELOW ARE SOME METHODS WHICH I TRIED AND I WROTE THEM HERE TO GIVE SOME MORE INSIGHT INTO THE PROBLEM

anyways here is what I tried next

I had another computer with a sata HD. I removed its HD and installed it in my current computer(with the problem). At first boot i faced the same problem(i.e. BSOD accompanied with restart) but after the reboot i was automatically present with the menu(as meniotned above) and i chose to boot in safe mode. It turns out that computer perfectly boots in safe mode. But all this exercise was useless as this wasnt the original HD(with the problematic winxp installation whih had all my data)

Anyways i tried another thing afterwards

I put back the original HD and and inserted a winxp cd in my cdrom. I was thinking about installing a fresh copy of winxp on other partitions(E. When I was going through the setup, the setup told me that I already have a winxp installation on C: which it can try to repair if I press R. I thought why not go ahead and I pressed "R". The setup deleted some files and then installed some. The the computer rebooted. After the reboot setup came back and and the message that was displayed was

Setup is being restarted..........

After that the GUI windows setup screen comes up and another error comes up which is as follows

lsass.exe - Unable to locate component(this was in the header on dialog box)
This application has failed to load because(this was in the dialog box)

below was an OK button

When I pressed the "OK" button another error came up which was like

Assembly protection error: The catalog for as assembly is not valid or does not....assembleys manifest.

Below was an OK button which when pressed lead to restart of system and all the process was repeated



Guys i m very confused and worried. The data in my windows(on desktop was very important) . PLease please help me out.

 

Can you not connect both sata drives to the same computer and use the working copy of XP to copy all the important data to one of the other partitions? Then you can use Diskpart (or utility of choice) to erase all the offending partitions and reinstall windows properly.

SATA drives do not have master/slave jumpers all that is handled automatically by the bios.

I think your Windows installations (both XP and Vista) are not recoverable after all the things you have done. But you will only have scrambled windows, not your data files.

Studio T

 

well actually i just installed a fresh copy on winxp on my other patition(E I tried accessing "My Documents" on C: but it gives error

Access is Denied

What to do now?

I know the password for admin account for winxp on C: but since i cant use/access that winxp what can i do to retrievve my data?

 

That is the point of Windows XP security. You need to examine the drive with a different copy of Windows. (I suppose you could try installing from the win xp disk for the other pc.) That was why I suggested the slave method. If the data /drive was encrypted you won't get it back.

Studio T

 

I didnt get you
The original windows was in C:. I installed a fresh copy on E: and tried accessing the folders on C: but it gives error of

Access is Denied
so basically u r saying that there is nothing i can do from the my fresh winxp on E: to get data back?
if not then is there any other way of reviving the original winxp(which was on C? this keeps up showing on dual boot on startup when i select this particular copy i m faced with the same problem again(BSOD followed by restart)

EDIT: Any chance i could use some other OS like DOS or linux to copy files etc?

 

You installed basically the same copy of windows to the e partition.

if you connect the drive as secondary to another system, it will not see the windows files as an os and therefore allow you to see the data, unless the drive was encrypted.

If you are very lucky installing a different copy of windows, by uisng the windows cd from another pc, might get you over this problem.

yes as you suggest, linux, or other os can also do this if you have a boot disk with a file manager.

studio T

 

Finally I overcame the problem
I regained ownership of "My Documents" on C: using help from this link

http://www.winxptutor.com/ownership.htm

after regaining ownserhsip copied all my important data

thanks alot guys for helping me out especially studiot!!!!
keep up the good work!!