startup failure

Hay All! This may well be a hardware problem but posting here as startup problem...forgive me if I err, but I need help now...

Yesterday, powered up as normal, but the startup never started, screen just went blank, all hardware appeared to be just fine, it just seemed that the startup files never initiated. Shut down via off button, tried again, same thing. Inserted boot disk, tried again, everything then proceeded normally (without any boot disk intervention (I don't believe that the floppy drive was ever hooked up on this machine...).

Today, same thing, but did not use the boot disk, and the startup kicked in on the second try.

SO, I would like to get some immediate input what kind of a problem this might be and what I should do before powering down... HELP!

 

Check your event logs for any information.

Click on start, on run, key in sfc /scannow and click OK and let the system file checker do it's thing. It may ask you for the XP CD once or a bunch of times.

Inserted boot disk, tried again, everything then proceeded normally (without any boot disk intervention (I don't believe that the floppy drive was ever hooked up on this machine...).

Floppy boot disk for XP?

 

thanks Newt...

1. event logs ok

2. the scan you suggested did perform some online upgrades but indicated that no actual problems were found

3. also downloaded diagnositic software for the hard drive and that checked out ok

well, "too much information" i guess, as it was not an XP boot disk, a dos boot disk actually, created via the old format option; i have looked into creating an XP boot CD but the varied sources of information on the process looks so convoluted that i have deferred it to a rainy day; anyway, the boot disk was a reach to try to do any kind of interrupt ...

any other ideas?