Paul K Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 Ladies and Gentlemen Intermittent computer woes are tougher to fix than when something is just plain old trashed. On boot-up, half to three-quarters of the time (the percentage is gradually increasing) my computer hangs on the blue "Windows XP is Starting" screen. The hard drive just stops, keyboard and mouse are inactive. If I turn it off and re-boot, it will sometimes boot just fine, sometimes not. Safe Mode always works; the "last settings that worked" mode sometimes works. When I removed all the peripherals, sound card, wireless card, etc., nothing changed. After I'm booted, everything works just as well as it ever has; this makes me think it's not likely to be the hard drive. No different noises are coming from the case; hard drive is cleaned and defrag'd (But yes, everything is backed up.) Ideas? Insight? Thanks! Peace Paul K Things are just the way they are, and they're only going to get worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Tyrant Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 Couple of things to try: Hard drive diagnostics and/or restoring to a point in time prior to the first instance of this problem. I'd do the HD diags first though. You could have some bad sectors that are only being written to on a semi-random basis. A third thought: You might want to run diags on your RAM as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MvW Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 The fact that safe mode always works could point to a driver issue. Did you install any new hardware right before this started to happen (even a new mouse or external drive)? If so, try removing the software/hardware and see what happens. Even if not, it could still be a corrupt driver somewhere. Have you run all the critical updates for XP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
... Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 The fact that safe mode always works could point to a driver issue. Very extremely likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Geoff Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 Back up all your personal data, reformat the drive & re-install. It's a Good Thing To Do every year or so. G. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the World will know Peace": Jimi Hendrix http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=738517&content=music The Geoff - blame Caevan!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul K Posted February 4, 2008 Author Share Posted February 4, 2008 Back up all your personal data, reformat the drive & re-install...(snip)...G. Ack! That's painful! I've done that before, and will again if I have to. But that's at least a six-pack afternoon. I've just run Scandisc with both of the automatic "Fix Me!" boxes checked. (Took a long time...) It booted just fine on it's own after this scan; more boots will be required for final positive or negative confirmation. I have added two things: New camera and new USB-2 hard drive (hence the timely back-up). I'll find and run some memory diagnostics, and if the problem remains I'll uninstall the camera software. And hunt for some driver updates. Thanks! Things are just the way they are, and they're only going to get worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Geoff Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 I've just re-done both the desktop & the laptop. I'm also experimenting with PCLINUXOS, which pretty much worked out the box with the laptop, but UBUNTU Linux worked better with the desktop. It'd be nice to get away from Micro$oft. G. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the World will know Peace": Jimi Hendrix http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=738517&content=music The Geoff - blame Caevan!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanvean Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 One thing, are the camera and the usb drive connected when you boot? If they are, unplug both and try rebooting to see if it returns to a normal state. If it does then plug them in, one at a time, reboot/test then plug in the last one reboot/test. My guess it's the usb drive. Warwick Corvette 4 Proline Tune Casiopea TWX 6 string Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Geoff Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 +1 I've found that the PC won't boot if certain USB items are attached. G. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the World will know Peace": Jimi Hendrix http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=738517&content=music The Geoff - blame Caevan!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul K Posted February 4, 2008 Author Share Posted February 4, 2008 Good news so far. Since running scandisc, I've successfully booted four times. I forgot about scandisc because it's not in Accessories/system tools. Will follow through with the rest of the above list if it's required.... FWIW, I did disconnect all the USB peripherals and even pulled out the sound card during my initial diagnostics. Thanks again!!!!! Things are just the way they are, and they're only going to get worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bloe Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Back up all your personal data, reformat the drive & re-install. It's a Good Thing To Do every year or so. G. I strongly disagree... I have been doing system's admin and end user support for the last 25 years (and a degree in comp/sci). Format and start over is a last ditch attempt to stabilize a system, pretty much in the drop back 10 yards and punt solutions. Your disconnecting peripherals and pulling internal cards is a much better approach. In my experience a failing hard drive will be more sporadic and not usually hang at the same exact place every time. Also, you will usually hear the head "clicking" as it goes through a relcalibaration routine. If it was me, I would be looking for a driver or hardware that is "unhappy". If it's locking up rock solid (can't change the state of the numlock/scrolock/caps lights on the keyboard, some other culprits could be: ram keyboard USB devices & hubs Without getting into Mac v/s Windows v/s Linux wars... Windows 2000 & XP are relatively stable. Drivers and applications are what tend to destabilize them. If it isn't failing hardware, it is probably some new software that you loaded or updated recently. Bass, the final frontier... http://www.myspace.com/johnnyandtheboomers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
... Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Windows 2000 & XP are relatively stable. Drivers and applications are what tend to destabilize them. That is very extremely true. You can throw Server 2003 into the mix as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenstrum Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 ...you will usually hear the head "clicking"... God how I hate hearing that noise... Tenstrum "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face." Harry Dresden, Storm Front Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rumpelstiltskin. Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 I'm also experimenting with PCLINUXOS, which pretty much worked out the box with the laptop, but UBUNTU Linux worked better with the desktop. i use ubuntu at home. i really like it. but. i think linux is still a long way off from being "automagic" like windows. if for no other reason than lack of support from hardware manufacturers. if everything you do is with known hardware and chipsets, you might be safe. however, it was frustrating for me to have to build my own support for my echo mia sound card, since it wasn't included in the original package. i mean, windows doesn't come with drivers for the mia, either, but echo provided them to me. i had to find the drivers on the interweb and do a bunch of command line. oh, and every time the kernel is updated, i will have to do this again. i'm capable of this, but many people are not, and until linux gets more support from hardware manufacturers, it will stay in the domain of hobbyists like us. robb. because i like people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robitaille59 Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Back up all your personal data, reformat the drive & re-install. It's a Good Thing To Do every year or so. G. I strongly disagree... I have been doing system's admin and end user support for the last 25 years (and a degree in comp/sci). Format and start over is a last ditch attempt to stabilize a system, pretty much in the drop back 10 yards and punt solutions. Your disconnecting peripherals and pulling internal cards is a much better approach. In my experience a failing hard drive will be more sporadic and not usually hang at the same exact place every time. Also, you will usually hear the head "clicking" as it goes through a relcalibaration routine. If it was me, I would be looking for a driver or hardware that is "unhappy". If it's locking up rock solid (can't change the state of the numlock/scrolock/caps lights on the keyboard, some other culprits could be: ram keyboard USB devices & hubs Without getting into Mac v/s Windows v/s Linux wars... Windows 2000 & XP are relatively stable. Drivers and applications are what tend to destabilize them. If it isn't failing hardware, it is probably some new software that you loaded or updated recently. Along these same lines I strongly recomend creating two partitions on your drive. Install the OS, apps and drivers on the main partition. Make a bootable disk with Ghost on it Boot to the bootable disk and use Ghost to make an image of your main partition...place that image file on the other partition for now. Now when you boot back into the OS burn a copy of the image file for safe keeping and then whenever you save a file, save it to the secondary partition. If (When) windows gets squirelly boot to your bootable disk and use Ghost to reimage the main partition. Takes only a few minutes and you won't lose any data or have to reinstall any applications. Now if the drive actually craps out then you had better been backing up your files and saving the source disks/product keys for all your applications. Bart PE is a good product to use to build a bootable CD. It loads a desktop and everything so it looks like you've booted to a hard drive (just like a bootable Mac disc). Anyway I'm supposed to be working right now so I gotta run. Rob Robitaille Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul K Posted February 15, 2008 Author Share Posted February 15, 2008 Little update on "the situation": Issue turned out to be a dying hard drive. I spent a good time doing the www.securitytango.com and a whole bunch of other things. Each thing seemed to help for a day or an hour. Then I downloaded Western Digital's hard drive doctor thingy; it said my hard drive was in excellent condition, but was cooking at 115 degrees centigrade. Two days later the drive health was very poor. PLenty of time for a proper backup. Just got done doing a fresh win XP install, and restored my backup documents and settings.... Almost normal. Thanks for the help, and hope this helps somebody else.PeacePaul K Things are just the way they are, and they're only going to get worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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