XP won't start anymore?

Greydawg · 16-September-03, 10:52 AM

I'm not sure if this is a result of a hardware or software problem.

My brother's computer is frizzy, to say the least. He's running XP Pro on a 1.3 Ghz AMD athlon and a good MSI mobo with 512MB of PC133 RAM and a PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4200 video card, onboard sound and I think onboard ethernet. We tried installing a new huge 120 GB 7200 Western Digital HD w/8MB cache this weekend and tried copying his 30GIG HD he already had onto a new partition on the WD HD. Everything is NTFS formatted. The software that came with the WD HD was LAME! It was going to take all weekend to copy the partition to the new HD, so we cancelled it at about 10%.

The computer worked fine, and then all of a sudden there were problems.

He can get into safe mode without much trouble. But USUALLY when he tries to start XP normally he sees the startup logo screen...and that's it. The computer keeps working it sounds like, but nothing appears on the monitor. The monitor usually says "Check connection," but of course we have and everything is connected. We also unplugged the new HD, which was on the same IDE cable as the original HD (a 30 gig maxtor that came with an HP a few years ago). He said he got XP started normally this morning, but that everything was messed up--his ethernet card re-installed itself or something like that, and he can't change his video settings from 800x600 with the lowest color depth. And of course, he can't get online either. I told him to pay attention to the beeps when the PC starts, and that was the last time I talked with him. But it's all totally stressing him out.

I'm not sure if this is the right category for this question, but does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? He doesn't want to lose the data on his original HD, and he does want to use the new HD to boot into windows XP pro. I haven't found any good HD copying software that isn't outrageously expensive. ANY help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Fantazmic2 · 16-September-03, 01:30 PM

It sounds like the Operating System (Win XP) "lost" all your devices, found them when he finally booted into the OS, loaded the basic Windows Drivers and lost his settings (ie Nic).

Here's what I would suggest...
-Remove the original drive, put in the new drive and wipe clean (Format and Partition) the new Hard Drive.
-Put int the original Drive
-Purchase a Drive Copy program...I use Norton Ghost to copy and create images of my drives.
-Copy the original drive onto to the new one
-Remove the new drive
-Load all the Drivers on the old drive and test the OS
-If everything works ok, then recopy the old drive onto the new drive and enjoy
-If that does not work, then you might consider starting from scratch on the new drive, installing all the programs and copying all his files from the old drive

Please note: Copy the current drive before you play with it, you might found out what the problem is and your ok, or you might make it worse and you have a copy already so nothing is lost.

Good luck and hope this helps

Greydawg · 16-September-03, 06:21 PM

I'm confused. Can Windows really just LOSE all the info for the drivers and such? I mean, it was working just fine AFTER we tried to copy the old HD to the new one, so I'm making the assumption that anything we did related to the new HD didn't affect anything.

So what would cause Windows to just lose driver information like that?

I've tried ghost before and it's...tricky, at best. I never actually got it to work on anything but small HD's formatted in FAT32 for running Windows 98. If I recall, the partitions have to be perfectly identical.

Any other suggestions for drive copying software?

Fantazmic2 · 16-September-03, 07:07 PM

The best way to use Ghost is to do a Drive to Drive Copy, then you a partitioning software to partition it (Partition Magic). The newer versions of Ghost allow you to copy NTFS and Fat 32.

In regards to Windows losing Drivers, yes it can happen if something gets corrupt. You basically said everthing was fine then "all of a sudden"...Well, something happend!

There are plenty of types of Backup, Disk Clone software, purchase what you can afford and what you feel comfortable with.

Take a look at the Device Manager and see what drivers are there. If you reinstall all the drivers and everything works ok, then your good to go.

I would suggest a backup of the old drive before you try to locate the problem.

16-September-03, 10:52 AM		#1 (permalink)
Greydawg Apex Master Tech Apprentice	XP won't start anymore? I'm not sure if this is a result of a hardware or software problem. My brother's computer is frizzy, to say the least. He's running XP Pro on a 1.3 Ghz AMD athlon and a good MSI mobo with 512MB of PC133 RAM and a PNY Geforce 4 Ti 4200 video card, onboard sound and I think onboard ethernet. We tried installing a new huge 120 GB 7200 Western Digital HD w/8MB cache this weekend and tried copying his 30GIG HD he already had onto a new partition on the WD HD. Everything is NTFS formatted. The software that came with the WD HD was LAME! It was going to take all weekend to copy the partition to the new HD, so we cancelled it at about 10%. The computer worked fine, and then all of a sudden there were problems. He can get into safe mode without much trouble. But USUALLY when he tries to start XP normally he sees the startup logo screen...and that's it. The computer keeps working it sounds like, but nothing appears on the monitor. The monitor usually says "Check connection," but of course we have and everything is connected. We also unplugged the new HD, which was on the same IDE cable as the original HD (a 30 gig maxtor that came with an HP a few years ago). He said he got XP started normally this morning, but that everything was messed up--his ethernet card re-installed itself or something like that, and he can't change his video settings from 800x600 with the lowest color depth. And of course, he can't get online either. I told him to pay attention to the beeps when the PC starts, and that was the last time I talked with him. But it's all totally stressing him out. I'm not sure if this is the right category for this question, but does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? He doesn't want to lose the data on his original HD, and he does want to use the new HD to boot into windows XP pro. I haven't found any good HD copying software that isn't outrageously expensive. ANY help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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16-September-03, 01:30 PM		#2 (permalink)
Fantazmic2 King of the Noobs!	It sounds like the Operating System (Win XP) "lost" all your devices, found them when he finally booted into the OS, loaded the basic Windows Drivers and lost his settings (ie Nic). Here's what I would suggest... -Remove the original drive, put in the new drive and wipe clean (Format and Partition) the new Hard Drive. -Put int the original Drive -Purchase a Drive Copy program...I use Norton Ghost to copy and create images of my drives. -Copy the original drive onto to the new one -Remove the new drive -Load all the Drivers on the old drive and test the OS -If everything works ok, then recopy the old drive onto the new drive and enjoy -If that does not work, then you might consider starting from scratch on the new drive, installing all the programs and copying all his files from the old drive Please note: Copy the current drive before you play with it, you might found out what the problem is and your ok, or you might make it worse and you have a copy already so nothing is lost. Good luck and hope this helps

16-September-03, 06:21 PM		#3 (permalink)
Greydawg Apex Master Tech Apprentice	I'm confused. Can Windows really just LOSE all the info for the drivers and such? I mean, it was working just fine AFTER we tried to copy the old HD to the new one, so I'm making the assumption that anything we did related to the new HD didn't affect anything. So what would cause Windows to just lose driver information like that? I've tried ghost before and it's...tricky, at best. I never actually got it to work on anything but small HD's formatted in FAT32 for running Windows 98. If I recall, the partitions have to be perfectly identical. Any other suggestions for drive copying software?

16-September-03, 07:07 PM		#4 (permalink)
Fantazmic2 King of the Noobs!	The best way to use Ghost is to do a Drive to Drive Copy, then you a partitioning software to partition it (Partition Magic). The newer versions of Ghost allow you to copy NTFS and Fat 32. In regards to Windows losing Drivers, yes it can happen if something gets corrupt. You basically said everthing was fine then "all of a sudden"...Well, something happend! There are plenty of types of Backup, Disk Clone software, purchase what you can afford and what you feel comfortable with. Take a look at the Device Manager and see what drivers are there. If you reinstall all the drivers and everything works ok, then your good to go. I would suggest a backup of the old drive before you try to locate the problem.