weird xp pro start up again?

Had a few problems with booting up a few months ago which I posted in this thread and thought I had solved it by flashing the bios but it seems to be back.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=261396#post261396

Every few boots the system locks up at boot, changing the boot order in the bios temporarily stops this, it was mentioned about printers with card readers sometimes causing this, which I dont have but I do have a card reader instaled in the "a" drive slot??

would be interested if any one else has had this problem

All updates on xp pro sp2, avg clean scans, plus no spyware detecte by, microsoft antispyware, lavasoft, hijack logs are clean also.

thanks

 

Is it stalling before the OS seems to be started? From the previous thread it sounds like it but not being there I can’t tell. Is there text still on screen or is it a blank black screen? What are the last few lines of text that you see? It would help diagnosis if we could determine if the system is failing to find the OS, or if it is the OS itself that is stalling at early boot. If it is a hardware or software problem?

It sounds like hardware and a possible hard drive configuration problem or just a problem with the bios detecting one of the drives at POST. How exactly are all your drives configured and what is on each drive? When you installed XP do you know if the boot files (the ntloader) were put inside the install on another hard drive?

 

I think it is hardware, but as it seems random it is hard to tell, I have tried disconnecting all non essential hardware but the problem did persist.

The weird thing is it has been fine for three months??? Just started again with no hardware changes.

Just a black screen no cursor, as I have now changed it to boot from cd rom the last "text is boot form cd ".

stalling at early boot sounds interesting, but ctrl alt del is not available so the os it isnt loaded yet.

2 drives, primary master is operating system, the slave is just data. ntloader was in the installed dir.

 

So you just have two hard drives? In your previous thread you said the boot drive was SATA, is that correct and what is the other hard drive?

 

boot sata ??other sata

 

I thought you had IDE in there as well, so I’m stumped now. Only thought left is what boot option do you normally have set in the bios. Is there options to choose the individual SATA drives or is there just the one option for SATA, which is normally the scsi setting.

 

It is set to enhanced mode, but I will try altering just to sata, have also disabled the memory card readers???

we will see??

 

xp not booting and locking up at start up.

It turned out to be a faulty power cable/supply.

thanks for your help all.
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