Windows XP will not boot

[camaroguy1998]

A friend dropped his POS off today.....
It will not boot into windows. he says it wouldnt do anything and he thought it was the onboard video which is possible bcuz it wouldnt come up on the screen at all. he installed a video card and now it comes up but it stops the boot and gives the.....
The last boot to windows did not complete would you like to boot into safe mode, normally...etc...
No matter what choice you make it just sits there! Even the count down if you dont make any choice stops at 24 secs and hangs.

I did notice that when it starts up it gives the standard single beep but, then a few secs later it gives another single beep!?!

Mobo - SOYO SY-K7VME

Any Ideas what the problem might be?

[DMB2000uk]

Is a reinstall out of the question?

Dan

[Skippman]

Is there a jumper to disable the onboard video card?

[InspectahACE]

Honestly when I had a similar issue, it turned out that the motherboard I used couldn't do the timings it was set at since it couldn't go up to the required voltage. I don't think its the exact cause of your issue but possibly the ram is being weird? I would probably do the typical try with each stick of ram a try just to rule it out hopefully.Granted it's not even 6am here that im writing this so I might be rambling lol

[camaroguy1998]

Reinstall is out for the moment, it his work computer so he wants to save all the data! Considering an XP repair!

Jumper for onboard video ????? I will definitely look for that and also make sure its disabled in the BIOS!

Memory? It has only one stick and I do not have another for it but, I will find one!
When this happened it was running fine, he turned it off, turned it back on the next day and this happened!

[Darkstar]

i second the bios and/or jumper to disable the onboard video since that would be the default selection. Also to test the memory and/or swap it out.

Also when booting up and hitting F8 , have you tried the vga boot option? i have had that work when i was having video problems.

[pwcmed]

SOYO!!!! I remember those. My Soyo KT400A would lose it's BIOS settings if I disconnected the power. Replacing the battery didn't help.

Do you a spare hard drive. Maybe you can load windows onto another hard drive. Make sure you disconnect the exsiting one. I would back up his data before you do anything else, if this is that important.

[camaroguy1998]

Ok, onboard video has been disabled, checked all the BIOS settings and everything is the way it should be!
I assume the battery is still good the date and time are correct.
I tried to do a repair from the CD and that failed miserably!
As soon as it starts to load the files to the HDD it hangs! I'm starting to wonder if the HDD has failed!?!
I have a stick of memory coming tonight(borrowing it) If it still hangs after the memory switch I betting on a failed HDD!?!

[Darkstar]

sounds like its hanging on loading a driver or system file, did you try the vga (safemode) to boot? Also you might want to un a UBCD to test the memory, HD , etc.

[skier]

have you tried using a unix liveCD to see if its just the install?

(i like PCLINUXOS personally, never had a problem with it like pretty much every other unix)

[camaroguy1998]

sounds like its hanging on loading a driver or system file, did you try the vga (safemode) to boot? Also you might want to un a UBCD to test the memory, HD , etc.

I tried all options when the boot would give the Windows did not complete the last boot error and then it gave me options to start in "Safe mode", Normally, with network connections....etc... I tried them all and all did exactly the same thing, it hung at that point even if I did not make a choice and it would then hang at 24 secs before auto boot.
As stated before I booted from a windows CD and that worked untill it was time to copy files to the HD, it hangs there indefinitely!

I will be swapping memory after work tonight and possibly swapping HD's if needed.

[camaroguy1998]

Ok, I swapped memory and it still would not boot!
I get "Problem loading OS"
So I then swapped HDD's with a known working drive and got the same thing.
"problem loading os"
I tried to load XP from the CD and that failed the same way as before, when it starts to copy files to the HDD it hangs!


The BIOS recognizes HDD, CD Drive and Memory.

Any other ideas

[Darkstar]

Did you clear the bios when you swapped the HDD? its starting to sound like wipe and reformat time. Someone mentioned a live cd, you could see if ubuntu live would load.

Not sure i caught what you were saying about the safe mode boot, did you hit F8 to pull up safe mode boot selections or wait for the system to come up with the problem screen and selection?

[camaroguy1998]

Did you clear the bios when you swapped the HDD? its starting to sound like wipe and reformat time. Someone mentioned a live cd, you could see if ubuntu live would load.

Not sure i caught what you were saying about the safe mode boot, did you hit F8 to pull up safe mode boot selections or wait for the system to come up with the problem screen and selection?

No I have not cleared the BIOS yet, I will do that today/tonight.
I tried both F8 and let the error screen come up with the same results.
It is now to the point the error screen with the boot options does not even come up anymore!
A simple text message comes up that says "Error loading Operating System"
This happens after POST!
I've tried the wipe and format and it fails, it will not copy the files to the HDD to start the windows loading process.

[camaroguy1998]

I cleared the CMOS and the new drive would not boot, still got the "Error Loading The Operating System"
I tried to boot from CD and reload windows and that failed just as before!



Help!

[InspectahACE]

Not sure if you looked into google or not(or had a chance) but I keep seeing that the first step to try to fix it (error loading Operating system), is to update the bios...another one says" boot into bios and set the hard drive ' Access Mode' to LARGE"..if that don't work then something else is wrong. either hard drive or maybe a connection on the motherboard(if not the motherboard itself) i would imagine..not sure if you tried that though

[camaroguy1998]

Not sure if you looked into google or not(or had a chance) but I keep seeing that the first step to try to fix it (error loading Operating system), is to update the bios...another one says" boot into bios and set the hard drive ' Access Mode' to LARGE"..if that don't work then something else is wrong. either hard drive or maybe a connection on the motherboard(if not the motherboard itself) i would imagine..not sure if you tried that though

I took his HDD and hooked to one of my comps and was able to access the drive without a problem so I figured it had to be a problem with the board.
We did a little shopping and he bought a new Biostar Board with an AMD Sempron 3000 for $60
This should tide him over till he is ready to put a new system together!

Thank You to everyone who helped!
Your help is greatly appreciated!

[InspectahACE]

Not a problem dude. Bummer you had to go that route, but at least it's taken care of

[hnzw_rui]

We did a little shopping and he bought a new Biostar Board with an AMD Sempron 3000 for $60
This should tide him over till he is ready to put a new system together!

Hmm, no Fry's nearby? In our area, Fry's has a Pentium DC E5200/MSI G31 combo on sale for $80 until Tuesday. Pretty good deal, imho, and should be quite a bit faster than the Sempron.

[camaroguy1998]

We did a little shopping and he bought a new Biostar Board with an AMD Sempron 3000 for $60
This should tide him over till he is ready to put a new system together!

Hmm, no Fry's nearby? In our area, Fry's has a Pentium DC E5200/MSI G31 combo on sale for $80 until Tuesday. Pretty good deal, imho, and should be quite a bit faster than the Sempron.

We live in the STL area and unfortunately there are no FRY's here!
I've bought from FRY's online and heard so much about them, wish we had one here!
STL doesnt offer much when it comes to Chain Electronics/Computers...BB, Ultimate, American all of which, IMHO, are over priced and dont offer much in the way of parts!
We bought his parts from a small shop in O'fallon, Mo.

Again Thanks for everyone's help!