# XP won't boot



## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

I'm having a problem with our other computer. Its running windows xp home edition. It starts up, goes through the windows splash screen and then after that the screen goes black, a mouse pops up, and it doesn't go any farther. I can move the mouse around, but don't get any response from pressing ctrl+alt+delete. I've tried starting in safe mode and have also tried starting it with the last known good configuration and get the same thing. Its been down for a month and I'm just getting to trying to fix it, but am getting nowhere.

I'm hoping someone can help me with this problem. I'm generally good with computers and built this one part by part. I had been running it for over 3 years with no real problems until now. There are some things I would like to save off the hd, so it would be nice to not have to re-install. The drive is partitioned, with most of our important stuff on the storage part, but there are some pictures and a few other things that I would like to save that I never put on the storage partition.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Are you using a wireless router?


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## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

The problem you are seeing is pretty genaric to know what is going on by the description, it could be software or hardware, like memory. IF you cannot actually get into windows, it will be hard to troubleshoot. IF you have the disk from your OS, boot to the CD then you will have an option to do a repair on the OS, which will reinstall teh main operating sytem components and not overwrite your data, if that does not work, you may be looking at a full install, or a possible hardware problem.


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## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

Nope, no wireless router. Its not even plugged into the router right now. I'm going to try the repair with my windows cd and see what happens.


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## duckman13 (Feb 11, 2009)

Might want to get a dban (derricks boot and nuke) disc that will wipe that hard drive and start over. If you have stuff that you need on the hard drive you can boot the system to a cd-rom and copy file off of your hard drive to an external drive if you need. If you need any info just PM me.


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## specialpatrolgroup (Jan 16, 2009)

If you reinstall Windows you get to the part where it shows you all of the disk partitions, if you reformat the partition that contains your OS, or delete the partition, create a new one, then format it with NTFS, that should be sufficient. Many of these wipe disks will take and write alternating 1 or 0's to each sector of the disk, you do it 3 times and you will meet the department of defense's requirements. It takes a very long time, but guarantees all data is completely wiped out, good for if you are throwing a computer or hard drive away and are worried about someone getting it and stealing yoru information since when you delete something, you do not really delete it, your computer just stops showing it to you and will later overwrite it if space is low. Reformatting takes about a minute, if you select the quick option, it is effective enough that it would block any virus on your hard drive if that is what you are worried about, I think it's a little excessive unless you are getting rid of your computer for good.

Or do what I did, remove the hard drive, then get rid of the computer. Take the hard drive to the local range and put it up to the test against a .44 magnum, I was very surprised, the disk platters gave enough to catch the bullet, rather than shattering or having the bullet pass through. It did not fare so well against the .22-250 however.


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## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

I'm going to try the windows repair option before I do any reformating. I just need to find someone to make me a copy of the floppy disc with drivers on it for my HD. I'm running a WD Raptor and have to install drivers for it before windows setup will recognize it and somehow the disc has dissapeared. I put the drivers on a cd hoping that would work, but it didn't work.


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## cbas (Apr 3, 2007)

Though this is an old post...

Could try XP repair console.

While in console, which is pretty much a DOS like command prompt thing type:

chkdsk /r

This will repair your OS if you have corrupted boot files and such while keeping your data.

If this helps someone out there then my work here is done.


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