Windows XP won't boot - need some guidance (1 Viewer)

[Paul Padilla]

My bad I spoke too soon.

Fdisk usually updates the master boot record only if no master boot record exists. Ok...Msoft says "usually" but I haven't been able find what constitutes "unusual". Still investigating the XP setup scenario.

Although Msoft says, "Fdisk has an undocumented parameter called /mbr that causes it to write the master boot record to the hard disk without altering the partition table information."

 

[StevenFC]

My head hurts!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I only know about this because about five years ago I was working at a consumer technical support call center for a Major PC Manufacturer and a lot of our users were getting hit with a viciously persistent virus that even reloaded itself after they went through the normal repartition, reformat, reinstall procedure. (And it also crippled Norton Anti-Virus in a way that made it nearly impossible to uninstall and therefore prevented the user from reinstalling the program.) We finally found the "/mbr" switch and discovered that running fdisk with that before and after we repartitioned the disk was the only sure way of killing the thing dead an permitting a clean reinstall. (Well, short of replacing the hard disk.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[StevenFC]

Hmm...before and after, eh? I never would've thought about that. I'll have to remember that. Thanks Joe.



Yeah, there are times when I wish I didn't know squat about computers (and don't compared to some I've met, mind you), because it can be painful trying to find a solution to a problem. And as much as I like computers and it is my chosen field, I hate like poison to read about them--especially technical documentation. God, it can be mind-numbing. I swear the people that write some of that stuff must think everyone has a genius IQ or something.

 

[Jon_Are]

OK, here's the update:

I was able to enter set-up (by pressing F1 at the HP screen), and then changed the boot order so that the CD drive is first (it was second, behind the floppy).

This, however, has had no effect. Still unable to boot from either the Windows98 CD nor the XP Upgrade CD.

Screen still freezes at the two-toned screen with the small XP logo.

I'm thinking I need a new hard drive. Could a virus have done all this?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The CD in 2nd position means it should have booted anyway, even before you got into the BIOS, assuming there was nothing in the floppy drive. The PC is actually by-passing both the primary boot devices and going to the hard drive. Is it possible for a virus to do this? Yeah, theoretically. Like I said, I've heard of beasties that hide in the CMOS chips and do odd stuff. But it may also be something more mundane. When's the last time your friend had occassion to use either the floppy or the CD drive? When's the last time he/she needed to open the case for any reason? It is real easy to knock a power or data cable loose when you're working inside a computer case - especially if you're concentrating on what you want to do (like install a memory upgrade) and not paying attention to the components you're not working on (like the CD drive whose ribbon cable you just bumped slightly so a couple of pins on the end are no longer making contact.) You might want to go back into the virus and make sure that the PC is actually "seeing" a CD drive. Just because the option is in the boot order doesn't mean the drive is being detected. Check your device list. If the CD drive isn't there, pop the covers and check the connections.

Have you tried booting off a floppy? Even if you don't have a boot disk handy, just stick a disk in the drive and see if the PC tries to boot off it. That will tell you that the CMOS is probably OK and the virus isn't sophisticated enough to screw with your boot device order. At that point I'd create a set of virus recover disks from a PC with an anti-virus program on it, or download AVG anti-virus to a "clean" computer, upate all its files, scan the host computer (just in case) and then make a set of rescue diskettes. (You'll need about 7 or 8 blank disks.) I like to use AVG because it is free, and because I've used it to fix computers that were infected and crippled while running NAV, McAfee and Trend Micro's OfficeScan products.

Boot off floppy one on your friend's machine and run the anti-virus program. Again, as long as there isn't anything in the CD drive, the system should go to the next drive on the list, the floppy, before hitting the hard drive.

Let us know what you find.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jon_Are]

Update:

First of all, you guys are awesome. I really appreciate all the advice I've been given both in this thread and in prior threads.

Anyway, the problem is fixed.

I tried using the HP System Recovery disc that came with the PC way back when, but it could not find a hard drive. Bad news, I thought.

I removed the case and found that a cable to one of the drives seemed not-so-snug. I re-plugged it, tried again, still no go.

Don't know if I had mentioned that I have two hard drives: a 36G and an 80G. The OS was on the 80.

So, I unplugged the 80 and tried booting from just the 36, and things proceeded normally. I installed XP on the 36 and prepared to shop for a larger drive to replace the dead 80.

Once everything was installed, I connected the 80 just for the heck of it, and the computer saw it. I installed it (physically), formatted it, and now all seems good. I have my XP on the 36 and a big empty 80G, into which I'll load my programs and keep my data files.

The only mystery is why it failed.

Happy New Year.

Jon