xp boot stops

WinXP Home - SP3. Everything was working fine. I shutdown for 2 days for a trip. Booted and it only goes to the line: Verifying DMI Pool Data ........ and stops. Blinking cursor on the next line.
I removed the drive and installed into another machine and ran a virus scan. Nothing showed up. Ran Recovery Console; Repair - chkdsk /r, Install Repair, Fixboot, & fixmbr. Same result on boot. Do I have to completely reinstall XP? Or is there a fix? Any help appreciated .... jonpv18

 

Try some of the various possibilities HERE. Check first that you don't have a floppy disk in the drive that is not bootable. It has been known to happen.

Disregard the part about running the sys C: command and the fdisk /mbr from a floppy. It doesn't apply to XP and may even be harmful.

Good luck.

 

Surferdude, thanks for the quick reply. I'll try the suggestions you referenced. Hope the surf's up for you today ... jonpv18

 

You may also want to test the Hard Drive by using the manufacturers diagnostic software. You'll have to pop the hood to check/see who made the hard drive and then go to one of these Hard Drive Diagnostic Sources.

 

Hey ... I found some other advice similar to yours and found a program that "will fix all the boot problems ". It was going to put the registry back to the original install of xp, so all the programs & drivers would have to be reinstalled. I checked the HD again per the mfg instructions. Didn't help. So I bit the bullet and formatted the drive and reloaded XP ... and am still installing all the programs & drivers for the motherboard. Thanks again for you help ... jonpv18.

 

From my experience hanging on DMI Pool Data is usually a hardware problem. Could be any hardware HDD, Optical drives, I have had it twice once the CD Rom the other time a HDD and that was not the C: drive.
I would check all cabling and try disconnecting other hard drives just boot with the C drive if you have more than one installed.

 

That is my experience also hawk22. I had a bad HD once and another time it was a bad CD-ROM drive.

The DMI (Desktop Management Interface) is how computers identify the various hardware in the system and make it available in a data pool as a resource for technicians to use when troublshooting systems. It also provides this pool data for remote troubleshooting over a network.

When it is indicated as a boot error, it surely means that there is a hardware problem, whether it be a bad connection or a bad piece of equipment.