Computer Bootup help!

[Chris Whitman]

Hey guys,

I am stumped right now with a computer problem and I know some of you are in the same indusrty as I am and wanted to pick a brain or 2....



I have a computer that basically worked yesterday. Was shutdown last night with no issues and this morning when you start it up ths computer goes to the Safe Mode menu or Last known config screen where you pick an option i.e. Safe Mode, Normal Mode, Last Good Config and stuff like that.....



Machine is running Windows XP Pro SP2



Does not matter what option you pick it loops back to this screen and you have to pick again... its a never ending loop...



Any Ideas?? There is Data on this CPU that I don't want to lose!



Cheers

Whit

 

[Richard L]

It could be a lot of things like a failed/corrupt driver, but I would suspect the CPU cooling fan may have failed and the CPU is over-heating. When that happens there is a thermal override that shuts down the PC and then it reboots again and you end up in a vicious circle.



Open the side cover, locate the CPU and watch the fan when you boot the PC. If the fan does not turn, or the fan operates irradically, like starting and stopping, etc, then replace the fan and you should be OK.



...Rich

 

[Chris Whitman]

"The Volume appears to contain 1 or more unrecoverable problems"



This is the error I get from the CHKDSK run from the Windows XP disk.



Any way of fixing these at this point so I can boot the disk up to get the data from the HD?



Whit

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Are you running Chkdsk from Safe Mode and with the /R (for repair) parameter?



Do you have original installation CD for the OS?



Is the partition formatted as NTFS or FAT?

 

[Chris Whitman]

I am booting to the Windows XP Setup Disk and than selecting the R - Repair Disk and than it takes me into a Shell where I can run things from the disk.



I have run CHKDSK but I can't run any of the / commands as it says they are invaild Parameters.



Wondering if its because I have booted from the XP CD and some of the functions are not available?



I would love to run the /r option!

 

[Chris Whitman]

Dup Entry

 

[Jacob Dryer]

boot to the xp disk.

select repair

recovery console

you should then get a dos looking screen from there run chkdisk /r then run it again with /p

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Chris,



I am pretty sure when run from that mode chkdsk by default does /r (aka /f) for repair/fix.



Can you do a DIR against the drive when booted in repair mode: e.g. DIR c:\



???



It sounds like you are doing everything right, and it doesn't sound too promising.



TJR

 

[Jeff C]

I had this problem about a year ago. I ended up having to take the hard drive out and put it on a Linux machine I had running, get all my important info off, and then re-format the drive. It was doing the exact same thing yours is, it would get to the loading Windows screen, then just reboot itself. Hasn't been a problem since it was fixed. I know that's not really a good answer, but it is a possibility.

 

[Chris Whitman]

Ok I am performing



chkdsk /r



Returns the following error:

"The Volume appears to contain 1 or more unrecoverable problems"





Than it takes me back to the C: Prompt



Does this mean I screwed at this point??



Cheers

Whit

 

[Jacob Dryer]

put it in a workingmachine and get all you can off.. sounds likethe harddrive is bad/going bad



after all the data is off download "disk fitness test" its a free bootable utility to test harddrives

 

[kil roy]

definitely check for heat problems check the fan also if its an AMD processor this is how they start going bad, i replaced a bucnh last year all with the same symptoms thankfully they were all retail box and under warranty



another thing to consider, did you get a virus? there is a brand new one

that popped up yesterday or the day before, very damaging from what they told us.

my job has hundreds of machines and we all got notices to make sure

the latest virus def was on them after we booted yesterday morning to insure the system

didnt get infected.



when i checked my mail at home last night there was an e-mail with a 30kb attchment

from someone i didnt know which was promptly deleted.

 

[jbluther]

If the hard drive is shot, download Knoppix or some other "Live CD" version of Linux. You can then save all your data to a USB drive, network drive, etc. I had to save some data off of a laptop at work this way.

 

[Chris Whitman]

Well I am pretty sure the issue is with the Bad Sector on the HD and chkdsk can't resolve the issue.



I don't see it being a cooling issue, simply because if its shut off for a long period of time it would get past the Sorry for the inconvience screen on the first boot up. Than shut down because of heat.



So I am leaning towards HD Issues.



I have asked the client to bring the box to me tomorrow and I will pull out the HD and see if I can recover any data buy setting it up as a Secondary drive on a system I have... Plus throw in a test HD to see if it works...



Thanks for the help!



Cheers

Whit

 

[Dale Carlson]

Whit,



Some other suggestions:



1. Try running fixmbr at the Recovery Console to repair the Master Boot Record. See link below.



2. Try running fixboot at the Recovery Console to write a new partition boot sector to the system partition. Instructions linked at bottom of page link below.



3. If you want to try something else and willing to spend the cash, try SpinRite 6.0 from Steve Gibson (www.grc.com). This little utility does big work. It really is not a bad investment to have another tool in your toolbox.