Thread: Windows XP Pro won't start

I sold a Dell Dimension 8400 to a friend in August that was on the job fine. In December it began to fail to boot, acquiring put at the Windows boot display, never acquiring to the Welcome logon display. I attempted F8 boot to use last known configuration. No go.


Thus I did a restore of a disk image applying Acronis that I created rear in August. That was December 21. Today the PC did the similar thing. Any thoughts with what's doing the trouble? Hardware? Boot sector malware? The hard drive is 3 years old and the memory is 2 years old, couple substituting the masters. Any assist would be apprehended.

Has the CMOS battery been substituted and normal cleaning done? As well, many older brand name machines came with marginal power provides and these incline to weaken. You can run HD and RAM diagnostics tools to examine these if you've not done so. Of course you've already attempted safe way, haven't you? If not, watch if it runs OK that way. If so, this could point to few driver or hardware malfunction and it becomes a process of ruling things out by exclusive loading devices.

I attempted safe way. No go. The PC was on a regular basis cleaned on the within. I have a Dell diagnostics CD that I plan to boot from to run hardware tests. Could it be a boot sector virus? If thus, what CD bootable software could be used to examine for it? I plan to attempt the Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper, which I already have CD created for it. Any other choices? Any other thoughts? How do you substitute the CMOS battery?

I would attempt another test. Restore the system from that Acronis backup again. If that works, then the hardware would appear to be fine. That just leaves another possibility, the user!

What does that mean? If a system is working well then only stops, is the user not using any anti-virus and anti-malware security protection? Is the system riddled with malware?

That said, hardware like hard drives will fail over time and can become flaky till they do fail, hence be prepared for that.

Yesterday I restored the disk image I had created on Dec 21. We'll watch how that goes. I Googled and detected a service repair manual for the Dell Dimension 8400, so I know how to substitute the CMOS battery now. I will attempt that next. I ran Chkdsk from the Windows XP Dell OEM set up disc using the recovery console and it found some errors and recovered some data (chkdsk c: /r). Will the chkdsk flag bad sectors as such and bar them from the master file table?

May be that was the trouble. I still haven't run entire hardware diagnostics till; didn't have time. Will do that next before I substitute the CMOS battery . For anti-malware: AVG free antivirus, Malwarebytes , Superantispyware , Spybot Search & Destroy. I downloaded the Avira boot sector removal tool. Will attempt that next, too . I ran scans using AVG, and Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper, with nothing detected. I will post here on the ongoing results. Thanks for the help.

The Spybot is not running in the background, but I think MBAM is. I'll disable that real-time function when I acquire a opprtunity. I'm thinking it's malware, also, because there are teenage kids that use the PC and may be visited some malware-infected web site. But they'd have to may be re-visit the similar site to acquire the same perfect trouble twice.

But I'll run hardware tests as soon as I get a chance, just to make sure. I'll keep off with the CMOS battery replacement, as the PC, when not booting, acquires past the BIOS boot, and acquires stuck at the Windows logo, with the progress bar proceedly scrolling, and never acquires to the logon display.

By the way, the last time the trouble occurred, I attempted safe way with command prompt , but that wouldn't load either. My friend is leaving the PC proceedly on now as it is the just one she has for online school work. I told her just to reboot if it gets sluggish to operate. It has a screen saver, monitor and hard drive clocked power downs everything on. Is it a good thought to just leave it on? She can't afford a novel PC or laptop.

Thanks for the CMOS battery connection, and thanks for the help.......