HELP: XP Won't Boot!

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xenithon

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Evening all. I need some urgent help please. My PC was (finally) going strong - clean, all apps installed, everything worked smoothly. The lightning knocked out the power twice in 5 minutes, and only then did it materialize that my UPS is fubar so my PC dies within 5 seconds. After the second time I disconnect everything until the storm was over.

Now my PC won't boot!! If I leave it to start normally, in the middle of loading windows when it shows the progress bar, it reboots. With all other options, such as safe mode, it lists the drivers it loads and when it gets to "gagp30kx.sys" it sits for 10-15 seconds and then the PC reboots - infinite loop.

Any idea what it could be? It's an Asus K8V with an A64 3000+, 2x512MB RAM, and a Geforce 6600GT AGP. Is it the graphics card? Is it the graphics card driver? Is there any way to solve this without a re-install or repair (the latter always messes up my system)?

Any assistance appreciated!

Cheers.
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Why not try put your HDD into another PC & then do a check disk?
 
highflyer, we are all guessing, but i think your guess is based on the last file to load in safe mode mentioned above.

although the logic is sound, by far most of the time that IS the last file to load in safe mode...i.e. on most machine the last file listed in safe mode will be related to agp/graphics etc. that doesnt mean that file or associated function is to blame for the error.
 
Looks like there could be a fault with the AGP slot. It could have fried your card as well in the process. Try removing the card and booting with only the onboard graphics? If this is where the problem lies then you probably need a new mobo if you want to use an external card again because there's a good chance that your AGP slot is cooked.
 
^^^^^
highflyer....
how the fsck did i reply to your post about the fried agp slot, and my post went above yours in the thread?
 
LOL sorry I deleted my post and submitted it again cos of a few spelling errors.

werner that's true. Another possibility is that the power supply could have been affected during the lightning strike and now it's unable to supply adequate power to the card?
 
Hi guys. Well I removed both memory sticks and tried with one only, one at a time - no luck. I changed AGP settings to lowest speed in the BIOS - no luck. I cannot try onboard video - do not have onboard :(

Another problem is that I tried booting with the XP CD for the recovery console - but my HDD is not found as it needs the SATA drivers....and I do not have a floppy drive at all!

I was thinking of getting a spare AGP card tomorrow (simply one, no extra power molex needed) and trying that to see if it helps at all.

X
 
My guess is that you will have to do a repair. I think it has to do with hdd corruption. If the computer cut's off in the middle of writing to the hdd there is a very big chance that it will corrupt.

Skip the recovery console and wait for the second recovery option. This will do a basic re-install of the OS but with all the drivers and other things still installed.

Hope that helps!
 
Thing is he still needs the SATA drivers for setup to detect his HD, and he doesn't have a stiffy drive.
 
O so it doesn't pick it up at all :(

Only install I did on SATA were on Seagate drives with a XP service pack 2 and they picked up the drives no problem. Not a new install just booting to use disk to format them. So I thought it might work if it's installed already... *sigh*

Well then I would suggest you get a stiffy drive :p

Good news is that I really don't think it's a hardware damage! :)
 
Hi again. Just wanted to point out - the original install was done with an nLite Slipstreamed CD which had all the drivers, latest updates etc. If I reboot with that, it detects the HDD but cannot actually detect windows - it finds the drive but I do not get any options for repairing or going to recovery console. It shows one partition but marked as unknown, and I only have the option to delete and re-install.
 
S1ght said:
Why not try put your HDD into another PC & then do a check disk?
Click to expand...

I second this before u do a reinstall... it's worked for me twice in the same circumstances you're experiencing

booting into recovery console and running chkdsk same thing
 
Before you reinstall

try this:
when booting press F8 to get to the boot screen and choose VGA mode because even when you load safe mode it does still partially load the graphics driver where as VGA doesnt load the driver. If windows boots in this mode then delete the driver from the system properties and reboot, if you still cant get into windows try booting into a recovery console and then run chkdsk /f ... yes I know that this is such an old command but it has worked for me plenty of times when windows wont boot.

Hey - what have you got to loose?
 
correction

I said in my last post that VGA mode doesnt load the graphics driver - This is a little incorrect - it does load a driver, just not the same one that safe mode uses and it loads the driver with the mininal screen res.

sorry bout that
 
Hi guys - sorted out yesterday, thanks. Won't go into too much detail (unless you really want it ;) ):
- didn't have a floppy drive (haven't had one for ages)
- tried my original nLite-created CD in which I slipstreamed everythings like updates, drivers, apps etc. but it did not have any repair option or option to access the recovery console (I think because it is an unattended CD)
- I ended up opening the chassis and installing a temporary floppy drive (not easy as I had done an uber cable-management job so had to undo cable ties, spiral wraps etc. to get power and data to the FDD!)
- copied the SATA drivers I needed onto a disk from another PC
- used a standard XP CD to boot, used F6, loaded the SATA drivers and accessed recovery console
- used chkdsk /R and fixboot
- hey presto!

What a mission! At least it wasn't hardware damage :D
 
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