System Won't Boot, any ideas?

[classicsoftware]

Four year old system with INTEL 865 motherboard and Seagte 80 GB sata drive.
System boots with a message that Windows did not load properly. None of the choices work. Get the black XP splash screen with the increasing small status bar (not the long bar at the bottom of the screen) in the middle of the screen. System clicks, re-boots and presents the same choices.

Tested the memory, fine.

Tested the hard drive, passed long and short test.

Are there any motherboard diagnostics I could download.

There is only a recovery CD, so no shot at the recovery console.

I'm leaning towards re-installing Windows.

Anybody have any other ideas?

[Budfred]

It does sound like a borked install and with only a recovery disk, I would probably go for a wipe and new install... Is the recovery disk able to do a Repair Install?? I did that with one recently and I have the computer back this weekend to do a wipe and new install, but it was worth a try...

[sassie05]

Ok I guess this would be a time to ask. I was under the impression that you could use the recovery console and/or do a repair install with a like copy of an OS install disk.

Is this not so?

[Whyzman]

Sassie, is your question whether you would be able to accomplish, say a WinXP install using a retail version of WinXP, onto a proprietary computer that only came with Recovery disks, i.e, a preconfigured WinXP install disk??

So, for example, let's say I have a WinXP version I purchased for my personal computer. To troubleshoot Classic's problem computer (perhaps thinking that there's a problem with the Recovery Disks...scratch or something) would I be able to install my known good full version of WinXP onto the problem computer to be able to check it out??

[sassie05]

Sassie, is your question whether you would be able to accomplish, say a WinXP install using a retail version of WinXP, onto a proprietary computer that only came with Recovery disks, i.e, a preconfigured WinXP install disk??
Yes.

So, for example, let's say I have a WinXP version I purchased for my personal computer. To troubleshoot Classic's problem computer (perhaps thinking that there's a problem with the Recovery Disks...scratch or something) would I be able to install my known good full version of WinXP onto the problem computer to be able to check it out??
Yes. Can you do a repair install?

Since it seems I am about to be schooled on this subject and I don't mean to piggyback on this thread, is it possible to split this off into it's own thread?

[jlreich]

You can boot from another XP cd and go into the recovery console. It doesn't have to be the one that the system was installed from or the same version since the recovery console has nothing to do with the actual install or activating and such, it's just a tool. The recovery console is the recovery console.

Actually you can download an image of a stand alone version of the recovery console to put on a CD. Sorry I don't have a link right now.

To do a repair install it needs to be the same version of XP and it will work just fine. If you go to activate it and it gives the error that that key has already been used just put in the key from that system and you will be fine. I actually do this quite often for both repair and clean installs. On clean installs I will use my latest disk with SP2 on it since all my others are SP1. When I go to activate I get the error, I put in the correct key that I want to use for that system and it activates no problems.

[sassie05]

On clean installs I will use my latest disk with SP2 on it since all my others are SP1. When I go to activate I get the error, I put in the correct key that I want to use for that system and it activates no problems.
This will work on proprietary systems, (Dell etc.)?
Do most proprietary systems use proprietary drivers?

[Paul Komski]

This will work on proprietary systems, (Dell etc.)?
Do most proprietary systems use proprietary drivers?
There are two sorts of repairs. Repairs using the Recovery Console for which nothing proprietary is involved and a Repair Installation (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm), which is a type of installation over the original. The reboot loops that you are describing are most likely to require the latter since they are often due to corrupt registries rather than corrupt bootstrap loading.

You can certainly try fixboot and fixmbr and fixboot C: and bootcfg /rebuild from the recovery console, whether run from a standalone CD or from any WinXP installation CD. The version is not important for those commands.

As for drivers - it all depends. It isn't whether the system is proprietary or not but whether your version of XP happens to have native drivers for your hardware or not. With the exception of SCSI/RAID drivers you should be able to get nearly all systems functional even if you have to grab specific drivers later on. For example an installation of WinXP on a Dell Inspiron 7000 has all the drivers needed - even though it is a proprietary PC. A more recent Dell, a Vostro 200, requires a lot of specific drivers to be installed and WinXP doesnt have them. Bear in mind that the P2 Inspiron 7000 came out before XP and the Vostro 200 only in the last year - so how would XP have any hope of "knowing" what drivers it required.

[jlreich]

As for drivers - it all depends. It isn't whether the system is proprietary or not but whether your version of XP happens to have native drivers for your hardware or not. With the exception of SCSI/RAID drivers you should be able to get nearly all systems functional even if you have to grab specific drivers later on. For example an installation of WinXP on a Dell Inspiron 7000 has all the drivers needed - even though it is a proprietary PC. A more recent Dell, a Vostro 200, requires a lot of specific drivers to be installed and WinXP doesnt have them. Bear in mind that the P2 Inspiron 7000 came out before XP and the Vostro 200 only in the last year - so how would XP have any hope of "knowing" what drivers it required.
Exactly. As long as you don't need SCSI/RAID drives you will be fine, or if you can get and properly use the drivers you will be fine. Meaning that you can use put them on a floppy and install them during XP installation using F6.

Also you want to make sure you download any system drivers before proceeding. But that goes without saying and is no different than any other time you want to install windows.

Setting aside version differences an XP disk is an XP disk. With the exception of proprietary disks such as Dell that have the product key built in and if installed on a Dell system you won't even have to input the product key or activate it. If you use the disk to install on a non-Dell system you will need to do both. The only other difference I have seen is you will have the Dell logo in My Computer and the Dell support on the start menu. Both of which can be removed.

Just to reiterate, I have only done this because my XP disks are older and it saves time using a more up to date disk to do the install and then change the product key to what it should be during activation.

[Paul Komski]

I can see exactly where jlreich is coming from. It's quicker and cleaner to install from an XP-SP2 disk than from an earlier version and then upgrade it to SP2 later for example - plus you immediately have much of the inherent security if you are going on-line early.

Even with most of the Dells I have seen the drivers are not generally added to those on the customised WinXP disk but come on their own separate CDROM.

If you really want to embellish your installation by creating your own slipstreamed CD then do try nlite (http://www.nliteos.com/download.html), which has improved and improved as time has gone by. You can very easily create and burn an unattended installation CD and include any normal drivers on it along with any needed service packs. I would only say that adding the F6 (RAID/SCSI) drivers has not been successful for me and is trickier than adding drivers for say chipsets, audio, modem, etc. You can also add the correct product key as part of the unattend part.

[jlreich]

plus you immediately have much of the inherent security if you are going on-line early.
Another one of the things that helps is I usually have SP2 (270MB file) and other files like drivers on a thumbdrive, but SP1 only has support for USB 1.1 which makes for a very slow file transfer. :( Having SP2 gives you Hi-Speed USB from the get go and make it much faster. :)

I have downloaded nlite several times and meant to try it out but have never gotten around to doing it. :(

[Paul Komski]

SP1 should have basic native USB2.0 support (http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp_sp1_preview.asp) though there were some USB related bug (http://www.warp2search.net/windows-xp-service-pack-1-usb-update-missing-in-action-s13362.html)s only later addressed with updates and in SP2. So, in a number of ways SP2 is preferable.

nlite (the latest version anyways) is well worth a try-out particularly if you want to customise an unattended installation. One main difference (from doing it the long way with a sif file) is that you will need to manually configure or agree to the partition where you want the installation to be placed. After that you can go and make the tea. Adding the drivers and any SP seems to work very well indeed.

[sassie05]

Thanks guys, that is a boat load of info.
I was aware of slipstreaming, but, I did not know you could remove some programs using NLite. Very cool. I'll have to do some experimenting.

Thanks again!