Problems booting up Win XP Home

Hi guys - sorry that my first post has to be one that is asking for advice rather than helping out but ...........

I am having major hassle booting up my PC. We had a power cut which naturally cut the power to my PC - since then I cannot boot the machine up without reloading Windows.

When I startup all I can get is as far as the welcome screen - then my machine "beeps" and hangs. If I reload Win XP from the CD (using reload ) I get the following message although the machine does load up and run ok. When I restart my machine the problems start again untill I reload Windows. The message is :

LIMITED VIRTUAL MEMORY.
Your system has no paging file , or the paging file is too small.
To fix this problem go to system in control panel , click the advanced tab , and under performance , click settings. On the advanced tab click change , click "custom change" and then type an initial or maximum paging file size.

Ok - I then follow my computer advice (friendly as it is) - I get the next message.

SYSTEM CONTROL APPLET.
Windows created a tempory paging file on your computer because of a problem that occured with your paging file configuration when you started your computer. The total paging size for all disk drives may be somewhat larger than the size you specified.

That is as far as I get because I dont know what to do next.

The settings on my machine show :

Drive C 384 - 768
Space 10197 MB
Custom Size 384 MB
Max Size 768 MB
Total paging size MIN 2 REC 382 Current 255.

My machine is a 2.0 GB processor with 256 RAM.

Can anyone advise me what I can do as I dont especially want to wipe my drive yet.

Cheers guys

 

Firstly welcome to geeks, secondly, have you tried starting in safe mode?

 

first off do what nickson sayz but if that doesn't help then boot from a boot disk but if that doesn't help call your manufactuer thatz all the help i can give cuz i am still new pretty new with computers well hope that helpz and good luck...

 

Thanks for the replies guys - tried booting up in safe mode and all I got was the system hanging again. Seems like the problem only corrects itself when I load Windows again - only for the problem to occur when I restart - possibly points to a corrupt file ? which windows will not permanently correct.

Very frustrating !

 

Try booting from your XP CD into the Recovery Console and run chkdsk /r
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654&Product=winxp

 

Cheers for the advice alanc - I tried your suggestion and the chkdsk took about an hour and picked up a couple of disk errors and repaired them. Unfortionetly it still wont allow my machine to load - still hangs on the welcome page ( I think its mocking me now )

Any other ideas ?

 

Further to my earlier post - it would appear that the chkdsk has probably worked but in a very wierd way.

When I get to the welcome screen it still hangs - I have left it for approx 10 minutes and still no joy. However if I press Ctrl + Alt + Del I now get straight into the system - am I "killing" a process that it running that is somehow stopping me getting loaded ? I am almost beginning to wonder if I have a virus that is causing although AVG does not show anything.

Getting more confused with this one !

 

Does it still hang when starting in Safe Mode?

Try booting to 'Last Known Good Configuration' - any help?

Have you tried using System Restore to restore XP to a date before this started happening?

 

Is this Xp Home or Pro?

Because there is an issue/bug whatever you want to call it that sometimes you cannot see password expiration reminder (it pops up behind welcome screen). I've only seen it on Pro machines, as WIndows XP Home can't be set to expire passwords, IIRC.

It stems from this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313194

Hitting ctrl-alt-del gets you in, in these cases.

Which leads to another question. Got SP1?

Next time you get into your system, turn off the welcome screen. I think *Something* is popping up that requires user interaction, and that seems to be hanging you.

To turn off the welcome screen:

Start >Control Panel >User Accounts >Change the way users log on and off >uncheck use the weclome screen.

This will bring you to a classic logon, where you will enter your username and password to log in.

 

I just saw the title and see its XP Home.

Still, I would try my advice.

 

Thanks for the advice adrynalyne - it was absolutely spot on in that there was an error message waiting to be cleared. It would appear the my original error message is still there just waiting for me to press the <ok> button. I still have this message to sort out :

LIMITED VIRTUAL MEMORY.
Your system has no paging file , or the paging file is too small.
To fix this problem go to system in control panel , click the advanced tab , and under performance , click settings. On the advanced tab click change , click "custom change" and then type an initial or maximum paging file size.

Any ideas what this needs setting to ?

 

Further to my post below (ran out of time to edit it ) - I have tried changing settings to let Windows manage the size of the file - still getting the same error message.

 

Looks like Adryn logged off...

How much RAM in your machine?

 

256 Ram - I keep thinking about putting more in but untill now it has never been a problem.

 

I'm not going to say you need more RAM, it can be a quick way to figure paging file size. So go back to the Virtual Memory settings box, select 'Custom Size', set both Initial and Maximum to 384, click 'Set' and OK all the way out and restart.

Error message gone?

 

Set the min / max to 384 but unfortionetly the error message still keeps coming up.

 

This would seem to apply to your problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315270&Product=winxp

Boot into Safe Mode and go thru the Resolution section of the article, see if that fixes it.

 

Do you ever get the idea that someone upon high hates you !

Tried to load up in safe mode and got the following error message :

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1) \windows\system32\c_1252.nls.

Is obvious that in the greater picture of life that this is my weekend for being the statue and not the pigeon.

 

Right click my Computer, choose manage.

See Event Viewer?

Expand it.

Right click on application, and choose save log file.

Give it a name, then email it to me.

Same thing with system.

The file names should be application.evt and system.evt.

I also need to know the precise date this started.

This is not sensitive information, just logs of information, warning and errors your system generates.

Also, what are your computer specs?

If this is an Intel chipset motherboard, which chipset?

Do you have the latest Intel chipset drivers installed? If no, install them.

Do you have Intel Application Accelerator installed? If yes, uninstall it. If no, install it (You need to make sure it supports your motherboard chipset, however).

 

Tootsie. Is it a Dell computer? Ihave had a couple of their machines, both with weird problems. Advice from MG was to fromat the hard drive, which did the trick.