XP System Hangs on Boot

[mtnagel]

I'm trying to fix my sis-in-laws PC and I think I fixed her first problem - it was an unmountable boot volume error, so I found the fix on the MS site and I ran chkdsk /r and fixboot from the XP recovery console. At lease it doesn't BSOD on boot, but now it boots up to just past the welcome screen, where it loads the wallpaper, but then just hangs there. The only thing I can do is Ctrl Alt Delete and it says that the CPU usage is 100%.

Any ideas on how to get this too run.

Matt

 

[Big Lar]

Hmm, You didn't run it on the web, or are hooked up to an Always On connection, without some kind of Anti Virus, and or Firewall right?

 

[mtnagel]

Originally posted by: Big Lar
Hmm, You didn't run it on the web, or are hooked up to an Always On connection, without some kind of Anti Virus, and or Firewall right?

Nope, it wasn't connected.

 

[mtnagel]

Any other ideas?

 

[KoolDrew]

You could try going into safe mode and seeing what is starting at boot up

 

[mtnagel]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
You could try going into safe mode and seeing what is starting at boot up

What's they key for safe mode, I always forget? Is it F8?

 

[imported_rhfactor]

Yes, F8

 

[mtnagel]

So it booted up in safe mode. I tried disableing all the start up items and the system still wouldn't boot in normal mode.

I tried running an online virus scan and it found like 35 viruses, so I figured that would solve it, but it still wouldn't load.

I ran Adaware incase it was spyware not allowing it to load and it found a few things, but still wouldn't boot.

Any other ideas?

I'm about ready to just load in another drive (I need to find one first) and reinstall Windows on that and keep the old drive as a slave so that she can have her data. The only problem is the machine is a Compaq and she lost her xp restore disc and I'm sure it an oem version. It has the sticker with her product key on the back, but will that work if I load up my XP Home Full Retail cd?

 

[KoolDrew]

The couse of this is most likely the several viruses. It could probally be fixed but IMO just reformatting would be much easier. Just get the data she does not want to lose, reformat and set a good firewall and av up for here and all that other important stuff.

 

[willfreund]

Best thing to do without vast computer know how on how to repair virus and spyware restoration is to do a full system reinstall.The time to reinstall and repair is about the same, with a reinstall more stable inscase theres still viruses left (they could have attached them selfs to a jpg or gif file!, i see this more and more often since someone found out how to do it.Also any programs you had could of been deeply infected to the core level, where a virus scanner would only detect it working, but would not find the original file unless its realy good)If you want to save some time by look, Go to your virus scanner log and check if there where any Real viruses in there, not just realy bad ass spyware(yes there are so close as adware can be labeld trojans and w32 just read the description) then I would suggest a repair,as it saves back up time

 

[mtnagel]

Of course you guys are right, a fresh install would be the best option and if this were my computer I wouldn't hesitate to do it.

The problem is it's a Compaq machine and she doesn't have the XP disc (if it even came with it), so I was going to try a repair install, but using my retail XP cd and her oem key (on the sticker on the machine) didn't work. So I can't reinstall XP unless someone has a Compaq oem XP cd I could get a copy of.

Anyway, KoolDrew was right, the thing was loaded with so many viruses. When in safe mode, I couldn't install AVG anti virus software, so I ran several online virus scanners (the first one picked up 35, the second picked up 64 and after I could boot into normal mode, AVG picked up like 11 more!!).

Anyway, now the system seems to be working okay. My problem is that in msconfig, there are listed things that when I search for on google, are said to be viruses or spyware, so I have them unselected, but I'd like to get rid of them. I'm assumed the virus scans removed the actual files (one was still selected on accident that was a virus file and at startup, I got an error message that it couldn't find the file).

How can I get them off the startup list in mscofig?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: mtnagel
Of course you guys are right, a fresh install would be the best option and if this were my computer I wouldn't hesitate to do it.

The problem is it's a Compaq machine and she doesn't have the XP disc (if it even came with it), so I was going to try a repair install, but using my retail XP cd and her oem key (on the sticker on the machine) didn't work. So I can't reinstall XP unless someone has a Compaq oem XP cd I could get a copy of.

Anyway, KoolDrew was right, the thing was loaded with so many viruses. When in safe mode, I couldn't install AVG anti virus software, so I ran several online virus scanners (the first one picked up 35, the second picked up 64 and after I could boot into normal mode, AVG picked up like 11 more!!).

Anyway, now the system seems to be working okay. My problem is that in msconfig, there are listed things that when I search for on google, are said to be viruses or spyware, so I have them unselected, but I'd like to get rid of them. I'm assumed the virus scans removed the actual files (one was still selected on accident that was a virus file and at startup, I got an error message that it couldn't find the file).

How can I get them off the startup list in mscofig?

Easiest way is just to search for that keyword in the registry.