Windows XP repair.......problems

[ualdriver]

Hi all-

Background (sorry it's long): SP3 messed up some functions of Window XP so I figured I would try a Windows Repair using the XP disk. I backed up all my stuff, booted from the XP disk (went into BIOS and had it boot from the CD drive), hit "enter" to enter Windows XP setup on bootup, selected my operating system and hit "R" and away she went. The computer did some things, rebooted itself, and then setup continued. A screen pops up with a list of "to do" items, with "installing windows" and "finalizing installation" not completed yet (no dot).

About 7 minutes into the setup, with the "installing devices" status bar showing, the screen goes black but the hard drive continues on for a few more minutes with lots of activity......then nothing but a black screen and a silent CPU tower with no hard drive activity.

When I reboot, I get the "set up continue" screen same as above, and then the same exact thing happens. There's about 7 minutes of activity with the above mentioned screen but then the screen goes black with some hard drive activity and then nothing.

So far in an attempt to fix this problem, I tried booting from the CD again to "repair the repair," but now I can't even get the "Welcome to Setup" screen. So even if wanted to do a clean XP reinstall, I can't even get the "welcome to setup" screen because after all the stuff is loaded (shown on the bottom of the screen) and I get the "setup is starting windows" message, the screen goes black and I get no menu options.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas (should I not be messing with boot order, should I let the computer sit for a long time with the black screen, etc.?) that would be great as I am pretty frustrated and out of ideas. Everything is backed up because I know that XP Repair is notorious for stuff like this. What in the world is going on where I can't even get the setup screen?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
ualdriver

 

[Psych]

First try waiting a long time at the black screen. Then format the hard drive with a CD for any other operating system and do a reinstall. I think you can do the hard drive formatting from an XP disk, too, but I don't really remember.

 

[ualdriver]

I let the black screen sit overnight (8 hours) but when I woke up it was still the same.

 

[ualdriver]

Anyway, I figured it out......

What was happening was when XP was doing the repair, it got rid of some software that my flat screen needed to run. So my flat screen was going black but Windows repair was prompting me for an entry to continue the repair, which of course I wasn't seeing so it would just stop the repair and do nothing. I tried a different monitor this morning (an older, simple CRT that I use when I'm building my occasional new rig), and it didn't go blank and I could finish the repair. So if you ever use Windows XP repair with a newer monitor, plug in an old one before you start!

 

[Smilin]

Glad you are working.

Getting into a reboot loop during gui mode setup is some scary stuff. There are two ways out of it:

1. Use the recovery console to jump back to a restore point. Search the ms KB for the article on how to recover from a "missing or corrupt" "system32\config\system". The steps are the same.

2. Use Shift-F10 while in recovery console to bring up a command prompt. Run regedit and manually knock yourself out of minisetup. Search MS kb for articles on minisetup and sysprep for the keys.