XP Home - no boot

Hello folks,

XP Home Gateway machine. Does not boot into windows, but a blank screen. Monitor is still getting signal. VGA mode does same thing. All forms of safe mode stop at agp440.sys.

I cannot perform a repair install, b/c my win cd does not detect the windows installation, even though it picks up the partition.

Any suggestions?

Several... but why don't you backup the files and reinstall?

You can do a parallel install on a spare partition

Or put a different drive in, install xp and slave the current drive and pull off the data that way.

You could go into recovery mode and turn off things - but it depends what caused the problem... I have seen malware do this and I have seen norton do it.

Also, are there any U.S.B. drives plugged in? Any new hardware installed?

No, no new hardware or USB devices. Owner said the last thing they installed was an update for Quicktime. When they rebooted, this is what they got.

About the only 2 reasons your Windows CD would fail to detect the old installation would be 1: You have a situation where the PC has XP Pro on it and you're using XP Home or some such or 2: the existing installation is totally FUBAR.

I know quicktime fubarred a few macs... wasn't aware it was toasting windows too...

NooNoo's suggestion of a parallel install then take files off is likely a very good idea. It's entirely possible your harddrive "may" be having a problem

While I do not have any answers, you will find a slew of similar issues using the following search string;

quicktime install no boot XP stop at "agp440.sys"

Well, this PC has XP Home on it, just not sure which SP. The CD I have been trying is SP1. I will try a SP2 CD, and perhaps an original also.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I will try a bit longer, than do parallel install.

Have a great weekend.

Based on CCT's post, go into recovery mode and turn off all apple and quicktime services.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jakkwb

Well, this PC has XP Home on it, just not sure which SP. The CD I have been trying is SP1. I will try a SP2 CD, and perhaps an original also.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I will try a bit longer, than do parallel install.

Have a great weekend.

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Any Home Edition will see a previous installation of Home Edition regardless of whether the original installation included a different service pack. Of course, product ID is another matter.

So, that leaves you with a Windows installation that is completely trashed, for whatever reason. That means a repair installation isn't an option, so at a minimum, you're looking at reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows. Now would be a good time to talk to your customer about data recovery options.

For ease of recovering data when a system can't be seen when trying a repair install I use UBCD4Win with a usb hard drive and copy there data and format the pc and install a new copy of windows. You can search on google for UBCD4Win.

How about using the recovery cd to run chkdsk on the drive?

I have ran chkdsk on it a few times already. Each time it finds errors and corrects them.

I have also ran WD diagnostics (it is a WD drive) on it from UBCD - it passes the quick diagnostic. Perhaps I should let it run the full....

Stay tuned.

OK, now the DLGDIAG is failing and giving me "unknown error 0141". This is the V5.x version. The drive passes the full test on the 4.x version with no errors at all.

I guess this drive is dying.

I think at this time you can nearly be sure it is.
Did it pass the S.M.A.R.T test?

That or it has an unusual error - have you tried zero filling the drive and then running the full test?

I cannot run the SMART test on the newest WD software - it gives that error before the program gives me any menus.

I'll ask the owner how they want to proceed.

Cheers,

Jakkwb