xp not loading, messed up mbr????

hello everybody,

i have a bit of a problem.........my xp refuses to load, i simply get a black screen after the xp logo, it doe snot proceed to the welcome/logon screen.........

i managed to log in in safe mode using my administrator pass and checked the error log of the machine my machine spurted out exactly the same response as the post here shows:
silvercue problem

i have exactly the same problem.............so after no luck with the recovery i formatted the machine and started again, i thought that setting up the machine with a windows 98 dual boot could have messed something up. the same problem happened again and after consulting the microsoft web site it said that the master boot record could be messed up, enter the recovery console and run 'fixmbr'.......i did this and the same problem occurred......

i then put in my norton cd fearing a virus it found no viruses but the computer booted with everything intact.....i am too scared ot shut it down now and was wondering if anyone has an answer it it my master boot record and if so is there a way to fix it, everythign is backed up so i dont mind formatting i just want a stable machine!! whenever an application hangs if i try to log off or restart she will not come back to life.

someone has suggested perhaps the win98 fdisk /mbr option as a saver, so that would mean making a disk somehow......something i am not sure would work and dont wanna take the chance for nothing.

the: my computer > storage manager says my drive and it's contents are stable and healthy

thanks for your time and help,

marcus little:

p.s. i dont have the same make of mobo or any of the same hardware as in the post i referred to my mobo is made by soltek and i have a geforce 4 video card.....i dont think hardware is the issue....apart form my hard drive perhaps..........

 

Hello Bissnatch,

below is what your boot.ini should look like. I dual boot, with the 9X being on the C drive.

In the Recovery Console, try the bootcfg command - Automatically scans all local disks for Windows installations and configures and repairs entries in the OS menu (Boot.ini)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\= "Microsoft Windows"

Regards - Charles

 

excellent

thankyou sir.......

i have now dumped windows 98 on the machine and have resprted to just win(xp)......i did make a boot **** for xp though if this happens again as microsoft described n their web site....

i still dont know if my machine is stable but i guess i am just gonna have to see....

if any one else has any thoughts to the instability perhaps ram i am thinking or still the hard drive gimme an email....

.thankyou.

 

With XP, you are only safe if you do the fixmbr from the recovery CD. The MBR for 9x/ME is laid out differently and wouldn't work with XP. For one thing, you'd probably trash your partition tables and not be able to find any of your files - even assuming the PC would somehow start.