XP Home Start-Up

My home XP Home Dell machine appears to boot properly, then offers me a screen for log-on access. When I do that, it says "downloading personal settings" for about a second, and then reads "logging off ", and puts me back to where I started. Result is that I cannot get logged on to use the machine.

I tried safe mode in numerous forms, including the command prompt only option, but in each case, machine jumps back to the standard XP login, and the problem I described in the first paragraph. Only difference in the safe mode case is that I am offered Administrator or personal access, but clicking on either one returns me to the log-off scenario above.

Since I cannot get into the applications, I can't check anything. Any help much appreciated. New member and first time poster.

 

It sounds like a virus/worm has altered userinit.exe. Have you recently cleaned up any problems regarding malware?

Have you tried Last known good configuration in the boot menu?

This is what you will probably need to do.

You cannot log on to Windows XP after you remove Wsaupdater.exe

 

To try the easiest...although not necessarily the fastest...thing first, boot with the Operating System CD in the CD drive (assuming you got one with the Dell).

Choose Repair the first time it's offered which, after it loads a bunch of stuff, will end up in the Recovery Console (I haven't used a Dell disk in a while so I'm working from distant memory)

Once you've gotten into the Recovery Console, which is a DOS-looking screen, type "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes), press the Enter key.

The scan can take a while and may appear to start over one or more times, be patient.

When it's finished, type "exit" (without the quotes) and if chkdsk was able to repair the errors, it will boot on into Windows.

 

Thanks for the quick responses, Folks.

Whiskeyman, you hit a nail on the head (I have to find out if it is THE Nail). I had a disease that would terminate any applicaiton that refered to "Spybot ". I used an MS product (trying to remember if I did Ad Aware also) to clean it and the scan produced 3 items to delete. I saved the references to deleted files, but they are now on the machine I can't get into (chickens and eggs). Your solution looks very likely. I have not yet tried "last known good ", but will tonight. How does the system know what the last known good was?

Miz, I did put in the system disk in the CD drive, but it looks like the machine is now bypassing the CD drive in the boot sequence. I also tried Ultimate Boot CD (.iso), but apparently again it was bypassed. I can stick an old DOS disk into A:, and get that to come up, but that does not get me into C: hard drive or to the D: CD drive.

Is there some way to get to C: without going through the XP? I've got some more reading to do based on Whiskeyman's references.

Many Thanks

 

Generally that problem is caused by running some Registry cleaner such as Easy Cleaner. There is another fix that you might try. It may be the same as the one Miz linked but it's a VB script so worth a try.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/fix_windows_xp_help.htm

The Doug Knox stuff is safe so not to worry if you get warnings from your system.

As for your boot problem with the CD, have you gone into BIOS setup and placed the CD-ROM drive at the top of the sequence? It should boot any bootable CD if you have.