Weird startup problem

[jfall]

This one has got me.. I just did a fresh install of XP Pro a couple of days ago and every thing seemed to be running fine.. but one morning I woke up and started up the computer and before it brought me to the login screen, it gave me a blue screen... I can't read what it says because the computer reboots itself in like 2 seconds. If I restart the computer like 3 or so more times it keeps happening.. then finally it will boot me into windows. Once I get into Windows I can restart the computer any time without getting the blue screen. It seems to only be coming up when the computer has been sitting for a decent amount of time and then I power it up.. does anyone have any idea what this coule be??

 

[xXgambitXx]

i've had that happen to me. i managed to read what mine was saying when it happened and it had to do w/ a hard drive problems. all i did was do a Hard Drive checkup w/ Norton Systemworks and it fixed the problem. i'd try that first. or whatever error checking software you have for HD's. hope this helps.

 

[jfall]

Ok.. I just ran an updated virus scanner and it didn't find anything. I will give the hard drive a check to be sure. Does anyone know if there is possibly a log that I can check to see what that error is? The computer reboots so fast I just can't catch it

 

[ChrisADuffy]

My buddy had this problem. The last thing we tried was doing a full format instead of the "quick" format. Also we chose NTFS. Now it boots fine. Wish you luck, it was baffling because I have fresh installed xp on a number of machines.

 

[jfall]

Well, I checked out the system logs, and there is one there that I reconized the word "hive" from. It seems to be some type of a registry error and/or could be related to bad sectors on the hard drive.

There is a fix for the registry... but I do have an IBM Deskstar 75GXP .. so I wouldn't be surprised if that were the cause. I just did a fresh formart and recreated the partition a few days ago.

 

[obenton]

There's a setting for reboot on system error tht can be disabled - then the error screen will remain and can be read easily.

 

[jfall]

I think I pretty much figured out what the error is.. but just to be sure, do you know where that setting can be changed?

Well, the virus scan didn't turn up anything. I also ran the IBM drive fitness test and it is reporting that my hard drive is fine.. no bad sectors or anything. I also tried to boot up with last known good configuration but it still happened.

The weird thing about this problem is that it only seems to happen when the computer has been off for a certian length of time.. I have no idea why. And I dont know why it would give me the blue screen on 8 startups and then all of a sudden work on the 9th.. this just doesn't make sense.

I checked up on the error and it seems to be some type of registry problem or hdd problem.. hdd seems fine.. the only problem is that you have to boot to dos and rename a bunch of files, then run safemode and some how extract the files from system restore... only problem is, I disabled system restore the day I install XP (.

Guess I should just never turn my computer off?

Might have to re-install XP *AGAIN* . Wouldn't be as much of a problem if there weren't 4 other people using the computer, I gotta set all their profiles and crap up too.