Computer restarts! Can't do anything! Help needed!

Hi everyone,
I have a problem with my computer and I can't fix it. I was thinking if any of you guys can help me. I will describe my problem as best as I can. When I turn on my computer, it shows me a black screen. It says "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start sucessfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this." There are two more messages saying if this happened, choose this. if that happened, choose that. At the bottom, I can choose: Safe Mode, Safe Mode With Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration, Start Windows Normally. I have tried all of them, but my computer still restarts. So I can't get to Windows to do anything. If I chooose "Start Windows Normally", it will show "Windows Xp Professional" with a loading bar. Seconds after this, a blue screen appears suddenly, then it's gone in a flash and my computer restarts. I didn't add any hardware in my computer. But lately I have been having a problem with my CD-RW drive. It won't read. When I put in a CD, it will think that there isn't anything in the drive. Please tell me what to do! I'm stuck!
Lian

First boot into your BIOS, and select the option to load BIOS defaults. Reboot. Did that solve it? If not continue on.

Unplug the CDRW drive. Try rebooting. Did that fix your problem? Check your Ram? If you have two sticks, try taking one out, rebooting and see if that solves your problem, if not try the other.

Also check all cables, cards, and connectors. Make sure they are firmly seated and are working correctly.

You could try to repair the current installation, by popping your XP Cd in, booting to the CD and choosing the repair option. If that doesn't work, go on to the next suggestion.

You could always just put the windows CD in the drive, and try reinstalling over the existing installation. Just run through the windows setup and instead of formatting, leave the current file system intact and reinstall windows. That should correct any software issue that might be causing this.

hi Big Booger
thx for your help, I'll go and try what you told me to. Please stay online for a while.

I've made the BIOS to default. and I've tried with my CDRW drive unplugged. I even unplugged my other DVD drive, but i still have the problem. But when i did it with the drives unplugged, the blue screen came on later than when i had the drives plugged. I don't have the windows CD with me. I'll try to find another one. and thank you for your help! Please inform me if you have other suggestions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lian

Hi everyone,
I have a problem with my computer and I can't fix it. I was thinking if any of you guys can help me. I will describe my problem as best as I can. When I turn on my computer, it shows me a black screen. It says "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start sucessfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this." There are two more messages saying if this happened, choose this. if that happened, choose that. At the bottom, I can choose: Safe Mode, Safe Mode With Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration, Start Windows Normally. I have tried all of them, but my computer still restarts. So I can't get to Windows to do anything. If I chooose "Start Windows Normally", it will show "Windows Xp Professional" with a loading bar. Seconds after this, a blue screen appears suddenly, then it's gone in a flash and my computer restarts. I didn't add any hardware in my computer. But lately I have been having a problem with my CD-RW drive. It won't read. When I put in a CD, it will think that there isn't anything in the drive. Please tell me what to do! I'm stuck!
Lian

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Coincidentally, I too am having the same problem. I turn on, it shows me that same black screen. I have tried Safe Mode and it works. But if I try booting normally, I just see a the boot screen then a black screen. I have had no problems with my Hardware and I have not added anything. According to my diagnostics, my ram is fine. So I am stuck without a computer. I am typing this from an old P3 that I borrowed from my school.

What kind of graphic card do you have? It could be a graphic card failure, driver issue, or something of that nature.

Check that the fans on the CPU and on the video card are working properly. Also try removing the ram and reinstalling it.

If you could get to the info on that blue screen it would help tremendously in getting an answer to you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Booger

What kind of graphic card do you have? It could be a graphic card failure, driver issue, or something of that nature.

Check that the fans on the CPU and on the video card are working properly. Also try removing the ram and reinstalling it.

If you could get to the info on that blue screen it would help tremendously in getting an answer to you.

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Mine's a 9800 PRO. I don't think its a graphics card failure, if not the computer can't even go into safe mode.The fans are working properly. I tried a system restore in safe mode but its still the same problem.

Ah ha. It wasn't a graphics card failure after all, but a driver failure! In safe mode, I uninstalled the driver and rebooted. This time it booted normally. I think is must be an issue with the Catalyst 4.7 driver. And I mean the one from ATI NOT Omega's. Should I reinstall Catalyst 4.7 or revert to Catalyst 4.6 instead?

I'd try the 4.7 only after you have used the driver cleaner to get rid of any traces of a previous driver.

:D

Lian have you installed style xp or any other theme modding software. I have seen this in the past after installing it it copies over a system file and causes it to crash This happened with the old style xp then installing sp1.

Also Lian when you do find the XP cd,you can try typing "sfc /scannow" from the run command,to restore protected system files that may have been overwritten.I would try this before installing windows on top of what you have.You may want to turn off your built in LAN adapter if you have one.Sometimes an active setting in bios may cause an error that has a hardware change symptom.Update all usb device drivers that you have.And welcome to Techzonez.Let us know what you find. :D

I don't have style xp installed in my computer. I've never even heard of it before. I think my graphics card is called Xabre. I don't think that's causing the problem.
By the way, zipp51, when you said i can try typing "sfc /scannow", is there a space between "sfc" and "/scannow"? When I get a XP CD, I'll try to fix my problem. And Thank you all for you help. I needed it.

you should type SFC /SCANNOW from the run box. yes there is a space between c and /...let us know how it turns out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joshsiao

Ah ha. It wasn't a graphics card failure after all, but a driver failure! In safe mode, I uninstalled the driver and rebooted. This time it booted normally. I think is must be an issue with the Catalyst 4.7 driver. And I mean the one from ATI NOT Omega's. Should I reinstall Catalyst 4.7 or revert to Catalyst 4.6 instead?

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Omega hasn't released his drivers based on 4.7 Catalyst yet. I'm using ATI 4.7 with no problems.

well, guys
I had to reinstall windows xp. and it was my hard disk's problem. it had some 'unrecoverable problems'. so i lost everything in one of my hard disks. now i have to start all over. :( but, thx for your help guys!:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lian

I don't have style xp installed in my computer. I've never even heard of it before. I think my graphics card is called Xabre. I don't think that's causing the problem.
By the way, zipp51, when you said i can try typing "sfc /scannow", is there a space between "sfc" and "/scannow"? When I get a XP CD, I'll try to fix my problem. And Thank you all for you help. I needed it.

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If you ever have to use this command,yes there is a space just as I have it there.Glad you sorted it out though. :D

Bad Master Boot Record (MBR). Now you have to determine what caused it and more importantly determine if it will happen again. When you originally installed XP did you do an upgrade or clean installation? A bad installation will corrupt the MBR. This happens when you are formatting the hard drive and you receive an error. It is even possible to have more than one MBR and when XP is loading it reads the wrong MBR. It is not rare to run XP for months and run into the corrupt MBR issue.

The short, but best fix is to always use the manufacturer's hard disk utility to configure a hard drive before installing XP.

Agreeing with all that went before...

For the future if you are really trying NOT to reinstall you can run fdisk /mbr from the command line in the recovery console.

I just fixed a Dell Inspiron with the same problem without reinstalling or losing any data.

I booted to the Dell CD (put CD in, power on and hold down f12 to get the option).

Went to the recovery console and ran chkdsk c: /r (this took about an hour on a 30gb disk).

Then I followed the directions from this site:
http://digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_ma..._boot_toot.htm

One of my files had to have a .bak extension added to work but you can use cd and dir from the recovery console to verify the location and names of your files.

As always Your Mileage May Vary.

I would like to know if NTFS was being used by anyone who is having this problem.

Thanks and I hope it helps.

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No blue in the correct addy.