Ok. I went and pimped out my case this weekend. Basically, I redid all the cables, sleeved everything, made it look nice and pretty. I switched it back on after this 1 1/2 day job, and it booted up into my Windows XP boot fine. I celebrated by ordering a pizza. I turned it off before I left the house, went and picked up the pizza, came back, started it up, and now it will not boot. After a few seconds at the Windows XP loading screen, the screen goes black. Nothing will pull it out of this state except for a cold reboot.
Things I've tried:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Safe mode. Doesn't work. It hangs at the screen where it is loading all the drivers.
I've done a repair on the Windows XP installation. I attempted to use the recovery console but it appears I've forgotten the admin password.
Checked my cables. Since the only thing I really changed this weekend was my cable setup, I checked them all over. Everything appears secure. I don't see anything that looks like it could be causing a problem.
I run a dual-boot on my system, so I'm able to load up Windows 98 SE (which is what I'm using right now). Unfortunately, due to the NTFS file structure of the Windows XP drive, and the fact that said drive is a SATA (which Windows 98 can't recognise) I cannot access the drive.
Scan disk. Basically, I dug up an old hard drive, installed it into my system, and put Windows XP on it. Thus, I was able to detect and scan the SATA drive which contains my original Windows XP. Unfortunately, this seemed to do nothing. I ran a thorough scan and no dice, it still hangs on loading. Also, this new install is plagued by a "Delayed Write error" which essentially deletes any file I attempt to download, extract, copy or move. Hasn't helped my situation much.
Google. I've googled phrases such as "black screen on Windows XP load" and "lockup on Windows xp loading" and I haven't gotten much of anything out of it. A few dead-end leads that weren't any help.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm currently working on getting a boot CD made with lots of nice little utilities. Unfortunately, with no clue what is causing this whole situation its going to be hard to develop a solution.
I
DO NOT want to format the disk as a solution. There is 80 gb of files on that computer, many of which are very important to me. If worst comes to worst, I will be buying an 80 GB ATA drive to transfer all my files onto. Thats how badly I want to keep them.
Anyone have any idea what the problem is? My guess is that the Windows XP boot record is severly fuxxored somehow, but thats about all I can come up with. Hopefully you guys will be able to help me out (or at least help me come up with a solution.)
Thanks in advance,
2004-09-12, 07:17 PM
Threaded Mode