HotNess 2 Posted March 26, 2009 hey yawl..my pc is havin major problems and im crap at things like this,trouble tiz i got 3 people telling me 3 differt things... starts up...after post it gets a blue box that says...system Boot error...1 person says to do a windows reinstall,another says it motherboard failure,and other says mobo / hard drive or both. i have tried to boot from disk drive..it loads up wondows to point of re-install,but hangs after about 5 mins. im tryin to figure it out myself before going to a repair shop as most will flim flam and silly money...(ie one guy quoted £85 for hard drive,same one online in his own store is £26..lol) and yup i can put things like drives in,but wouldnt attempt mobo..? so..any help n advice is most welcom xx v xx Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slartibartfast 153 Posted March 26, 2009 (edited) Okay without the full error message I cant be positive but it looks like Microswipe has a corruption on the startup files. A re-install or repair of Windows XP and it should be back to normal. As to your PC hating you nope thats Microswipe having a great idea and screwing the job up... Apologies for the bad news... Edited March 26, 2009 by PACMAN Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+FLOGGER23 3,064 Posted March 26, 2009 hey yawl..my pc is havin major problems and im crap at things like this,trouble tiz i got 3 people telling me 3 differt things... starts up...after post it gets a blue box that says...system Boot error...1 person says to do a windows reinstall,another says it motherboard failure,and other says mobo / hard drive or both. i have tried to boot from disk drive..it loads up wondows to point of re-install,but hangs after about 5 mins. im tryin to figure it out myself before going to a repair shop as most will flim flam and silly money...(ie one guy quoted £85 for hard drive,same one online in his own store is £26..lol) and yup i can put things like drives in,but wouldnt attempt mobo..? so..any help n advice is most welcom xx v xx Try this: open the PC, remove and reseat the memory (RAM), remove the mobo battery for at least 1 minute, (i have been told to press the power button without battery and power cable, to drain power from mobo, try that too) put it back, then restart it, set time and date and all other settings for the mobo, select to boot it from cd and try to restart Windows, if you have nothing to loose on the HD erase all partitions and recreate them, now, finally if all that leads you to the same problem, my best guess is a mobo change, if you need my assistance i'll be more than glad, just pm me. regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Gunrunner 314 Posted March 26, 2009 The thing is... it could be any of the three... If Windows got corrupted for software reasons, in certain circumstances you can get that error, and reinstalling will help, changing hardware won't. If the hard drive is faulty, then you might get away with it by reinstalling, but it will crash again sooner or later, changing the motherboard won't help at all, changing the drive will (but will mean reinstalling on the new drive anyway). If the mobo is faulty to the point of not even booting, then there's chance it won't even let you finish installation or fail in the first reboot cycles, depending on the age of the mobo and associated components, changing it might mean changing other components as well. There even might be multiple failures... Do you happen to have another computer on hand, or at least another hard drive, even small and old, as long as you are sure it's functionnal ? If you do, the empirical testing procedure is simple... 1) Try booting the hard drive A on computer B, if it's not found or gives the same error, there's a good chance hard drive A is the culprit (verify the drive is supported by computer B though). 2) Try installing windows on hard drive B, installed on computer A, if it works, then the motherboard is fine. If 1) and 2) fail, then it's time to change both. If 1) only fails, then it's the hard drive. If 2) only fails, then it's the motherboard. If none fail, then you can probably safely keep drive A in computer A and simply reinstall or repair windows. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Jug 99 Posted March 26, 2009 hey yawl..my pc is havin major problems and im crap at things like this,trouble tiz i got 3 people telling me 3 differt things... starts up...after post it gets a blue box that says...system Boot error...1 person says to do a windows reinstall,another says it motherboard failure,and other says mobo / hard drive or both. i have tried to boot from disk drive..it loads up wondows to point of re-install,but hangs after about 5 mins. im tryin to figure it out myself before going to a repair shop as most will flim flam and silly money...(ie one guy quoted £85 for hard drive,same one online in his own store is £26..lol) and yup i can put things like drives in,but wouldnt attempt mobo..? so..any help n advice is most welcom xx v xx racindriver1, you have a lot of expertise here on these forums, but to solve a technical problem, you need to present all of the information to narrow down the possibilities. I never climbed out of my jet and told my crewchief that the jet was broke and walked away. Help us out a little. What are the specs of your box? (Windows XP, What Service Pak installed?, CPU, RAM, HD size and space available, etc) What are the specifics on your blue screen? Exact word-for-word message you are getting. We may not be able to save you any money, but if you need help, you need to provide the information that will narrow down the things that might be wrong. That way you only have two or three things to try yourself (one-at-a-time) until you get a solution. If you end up seeing the computer dude in the repair shop, you will need to provide that same information and the things you did to attempt repairs at home that did not work. He may not charge you less, but you may see your machine back from him faster. Now, from what I have read here, sounds like the registry or some critical Operating System (Windows XP) has become corrupted. I suggest you try a re-install or repair as recommended earlier on this thread as a place to start. When you do, take some notes on exactly what happened and how it turned out. You may need that later. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lt. James Cater 62 Posted March 26, 2009 Listen to the sounds your comp makes as well. I picked up my Dell 4400 second hand and in retrospect, should have realized the hard drive was suspect from the start. The sounds coming from the comp were that of a dying HD but i wasn't sure just how bad it was seeing as i never knew what dying HDs sounded like. After a whole lot of miserable experences the thing finally gave the blue screen death notice and that was that. Once the HD was replaced and XP reinstalled, the Dell has been running as smooth as can be. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted March 26, 2009 Yeah, it literally could be anything at this point, unless you notice it making a particular bad noise. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
