Windows Not Starting

P

Putter

Geek
Well I've had my computer unplugged for about a month, and finally I'm hooking it back up (but not without problems - my monitor wasn't working but that's another issue).

Anyways, since my monitor wasn't working I definately hit the restart/power button several times out of frustration. Now that I've gotten it working, I have an entirely different problem. My computer starts up, does the normal motherboard word thing, then says the following:

We apoligize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change may have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectantly or was automatically shut down to protect your files, use last known good configuration to recent to the most recent settings that worked.

If the previous startup attempt was interupted due to a power failure or because the power or reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problems, choose the strat windows normally.
-Safe Mode
-Safe Mode with Network
-Safe Mode with Command Prompts
-Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)
-Start Windows Normally
Click to expand...

I have no idea what has happened. I didn't add any new hardware, the only thing that really changed is I'm not connected to the internet, I probably pressed the power button a few times.

So I made attempts to use safe mode, start windows normally and last known good configuration. All begin to open windows, then I get a blue screen with some writing, then it goes to the mobo screen again and repeats the same thing over.

So if anyone has any ideas, that would be great.
 
The only thing that i can think of that might have changed would be atmospheric... so check inside the pc, how dusty is it? etc
 
Well, if you run step by step confirmation (which may only be in XP pro) You can at least figure out where windows is crashing. Your looking at a lot of possible problems, but the most common are A. a missing windows component, or B. Windows failing when it tries to load some driver for a piece of hardware which is faulty. Definitely as always you'll want to run it with as many things removed as possible. Try and boot it with everything removed that you don't strictly need(Sound card, cd drive, things like that) and if you can get it to run, start adding those things back, and trying to boot it again, seeing if you can pinpoint the problem. Then again, your installation may have been damaged by a virus, and I'm not sure exactly what you would be able to do about that, short of reinstalling.
 
Also, try running Memtest. I have a suspicion that there might be an issue with the RAM.
 
Yes, always memtest. If you don't have a disk with memtest I recomend getting some kind of linux bootdisk (I prefer gentoo) because even running a strictly windows environment, there are a lot of useful tools on there that help diagnose problems.
 
That is a problem commonly solved by running a WXP repair ans could be caused by the several improper shut downs(corrupted files, data loss, etc) . Do you have your original XP CD?
 
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