Cannot boot XP-Pro!

Luckily, I have a spare computer! This started early this morning with a BSOD. After trying to reboot, I'm getting:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

STOP: 0X00000050 (0xFFFFFFF0, 0X00000000, 0X80581B76, 0X00000000)

My slip-streamed SP1 CD refuses to go past "Loading Windows Executives..." and to top it off, my original CD goes until it encounters "flopsys.cdr (or something like it) is corrupt, press any key to reboot ".

I tried booting with a Win'98 floppy, but forgot my HD's are NTFS so nothing shows up. I'm thinking if I can somehow get a C:\>, I can chkdsk my way out of it...

How can I get to my C: prompt?

Thanks!

Russ

 

Boot from the CD to the recovery console and you can run chkdsk /r from there. That boot option should appear well before where yours is hanging.

Most likely won't help though. This particular error is usually a hardware problem.

- Try reseating all your memory.
- If no luck, remove all but one stick and try then just keep replacing the stick with another until it either works or you've run thru all of it.
- If no luck try removing all non-essential bits of hardwareish stuff and reseating your video card.
- If still no luck, try another video card.

 

Hey Newt,

I finally got the recovery console to work without blue-screening! I ended up removing everything except the video card (didn't work), reseating the memory (didn't work), swapping the memory around (didn't work), dumping the CMOS (maybe... or maybe a combination of the previous).

When I pulled the sides off the case, this thing was coated with dust bunnies! And I know better than to let it go that long (over a year) without cleaning. Took it out to the garage and blew a cloud across the driveway! Guess I'll need to make this a monthly chore.

Once in recovery console mode, chkdsk refused to run (something about unrecoverable disk errors), so I tried fixmbr and fixboot, then chkdsk ran (actually, it ran for 3 hours and locked up). After another reboot, I was able to get my slip-streamed CD to boot and did the "R" repair. Currently, it's an hour into another chkdsk... I'm going to bed and will check tomorrow!

Thanks!

Russ

 

OK, the problem was a corrupt video driver. The only way around it was deleting the C: partition, a complete reformat, reloading my SP1 XP (which now worked?), and a restore from my external HD backup unit. Even after a complete restore (with system state), I had only 640 x 480 x 4 color video. Switching from the ASUS driver (that had been there for over a year) to the MS certified NVidia drivers cured the problem...

Later!

Russ

 

Russ - I think I'd run another chkdsk /r and see what sort of errors it finds. You can run eventvwr.msc and look in the application log and an informational event about winlogon for details of the scan results after if finishes and the PC boots back up.

 

Well, it seems I was a bit hasty. It ran seemingly OK for several hours, then the same old thing (STOP: 0X00000050). So I just ordered a bunch of new (and long overdue) parts - 120G WD harddrive, video card, dual layer DVD burner, new power supply, and flatbed USB scanner (the scanner will allow me to get rid of my SCSI card). I'm hoping the mobo and memory are OK as they are the newest pieces in my system.

I'll try and post back whenever things are running right.

Later,

Russ

 

OK, I'm back and everything is *almost* right! I added all my new stuff, got XP reinstalled, restored everything on C: drive (except hardware from system state). Had to reinstall Norton AV. Now here's what's not working right:

Internet Explorer (v.6) takes over a minute to load and I'm using about:blank for a homepage! I get an outer shell with the inner window transparent while it's trying to load. I tried doing the repair from add/remove windows components, but it didn't help.

Having all kinds of WMI errors. Cannot run the network trouobleshooter as all tests end in "WMI Error - - - FAILED ". I went to services and right-clicked WMI and got a property sheet stating there was a failed installation of WMI. It would not let me access any of the other properties... Tried "sfc /scannow" and it didn't replace any files. Is there a way to reinstall this?

I can access all my network computers, get online from each of them, but cannot access my router homepage from the "new" one. For some reason, I type in "http://192.168.0.1" and the user/pass box comes up. I type "admin" for user, and my password (which works on all the others), and IE clears the password box like it was the wrong pass! On top of that, there's no alternative but to "end process" on it, because the box only responds to a correct password (if the wrong one is entered, the box keeps comeing back until the right one is entered). NEVERMIND! I had "Admin" instead of "admin" for a username... FIXED!

Any ideas?

Russ

 

about:blank will cause you some problems.

If you really want a blank sheet for a home page, open notepad, type nothing in, and save it as c:\someplace\blank.htm (make sure to set notepad to use all file types else you will get blank.htm.txt although you can easily rename it). Then set that as your home page. someplace being the folder of your choice.

I don't much like any of the available internet home pages so I made my only real venture into the world of html code and made up a page that is only links to the places I might want to start and use that as my home page. The only live internet piece on it is a box linked to wunderground.com and that gives me local weather along with a validation that I'm net connected when I open the page.

 

Thanks Newt, that did help IE load a little quicker, although I can't figure why I'd have this problem now that I never had before...

The WMI problem is solved, too. Seems it needed to access the local host and I'd somehow blocked it's access. So, I'm completely back to normal now!

Thanks!

 

about:blank - I'm not sure but I think Microsoft has taken note of all the spyware hijacks that make use of about:blank and have put in some internal checks when the system sees IE trying to start with that for a home page.