HP Computer
Windows XP Home Edition
First, I thought our monitor was going out. Finally, one morning, we could turn the computer on, but see no screen, except when it was unplugged from the tower itself, where it clearly displayed “Check Signal”. Turns out that, among other things, the video or graphics card was out. So, they replaced the video/graphics card (actually put in a second one since my original is built-in) and fixed the screen problem, but now, Windows will not start up at all except for in Safe Mode/Safe Mode with Networking.
If I try to start up in normal mode or in Last Known Good Configuration, it goes to a black screen after displaying the windows logo and the scrolling blue bar. It’ll sit there and do nothing. Last night, I got it to work on Last Known Good config. because the mouse cursor appeared, so I pushed Ctrl+Alt+Delete and it started up after it performed a 5 stage checkdisk. Unfortunately, my mother put her Diablo II game in and it crashed it. Now, this morning, it’s back to only working in safe mode.
I DID get the error that says “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupted: System32\Drivers\pci.sys
I went and changed the settings for the computer to load up the CDROM drive before the hard drive, used my Windows XP Home CD to expand the file from D:\i386\psi.sy_ C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\drivers /y. It still would not start up. I received the error again, so it must not have worked. I tried to perform the full checkdisk again, but it didn’t work.
It will also not open in Debug mode. Black screen response for over a half an hour.
I tried going to the device manager and decreasing the hardware acceleration. Didn’t do a thing.
Screen resolution is just fine.
In the Device Manager, nothing is coming up as corrupted or needing updates.
I’ve searched all over google and done all of this, and it still will only boot up in Safe Modes.
Is there anything in my regedit that I should look for? I read that I should look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Wi… Version\Winlogon\Notify to check and see if anybody installed anything in there, but what exactly do I look for?
I cannot run the winnt\32 /cmdcons from the i386 folder of the CD for some reason.
The NeoComputers store also gave me MalwareBytes and Spyware Terminator to run on the computer last night, but it didn’t come up with anything that wasn’t a false positive (i.e. PopCap game data from the MahJong that my mother bought from Yahoo).
What caused this, and what else can I do to fix it here at home so that I can avoid paying $65+ per hour for them to root around my files?
do a reformat …this should be done every so often anyway
Honestly, I would just format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Backup your files and run your recovery disc or partition. That will solve your problems once and for all. You don’t need to pay them $65 and hour to do it – very easy to do it yourself.
It looks to me as if you may still have some malware. Download, install, update and run a full scan in safe mode with these programs..http://www.superantispyware.comhttp://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0.htm… (Ad-Aware)
You should run Malwarebytes in safe mode as well, then re-start.
If that doesn’t fix it, try this (you won’t lose any data).
Non destructive, no format re-install of Windows XP
What you’ll need-
A Windows installation CD with the serial key.
First enter ‘Setup’ – When booting up (before Windows loads) keep tapping either Del, Esc, F2 or F12. Depending on your system, one of these will get you into ‘Setup’. Once there, change the ‘boot order/sequence’ to boot from the CD/DVD drive first.
Insert the Windows CD, save and exit. If you don’t get a screen saying ‘Press any key to boot from CD’ re-start. If you do, then press a key.
When it boots up from the CD you’ll see a screen with ‘Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware….’ then the ‘Windows Setup’ screen.
After a couple of minutes, you’ll see a screen with ‘Windows Setup-Setup is starting Windows’
On the next screen ‘To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER’ press enter.
Setup will now look for ‘a previous version of Windows’ If your copy of Windows isn’t highlighted, do so now. Once it’s selected press ‘R’ for ‘Repair’.
What happens now, is that Setup will find and delete corrupt or damaged system files and folders, then replace them with new ones from the CD. When the new files have been installed, Setup will rebuild any damaged parts of the registry but leave the rest as is. This means that you don’t lose any of your installed drivers/programs.
Once Setup has finished this part of the process, it will automatically re-boot, so you have to remove the CD (replace the CD once the boot has finished).
The first re-boot will take some time so be patient. When Setup starts again don’t panic! It will look as though you’re doing a full re-install, you’re not, it’s part of the repair.
The next couple of screens will ask for language settings and the serial key, enter them. After giving this information the next two or three screens can be ignored, they will move along a lot faster than the progress bar indicates as none of the settings have been changed.
When the repair is finished you’ll see the ‘completing installation’ screen, then the system will re-boot, again, this will take longer than usual (remove the CD).
You’ll next see a ‘Welcome to Windows’ screen then be asked if you want to register and maybe to re-activate depending on how bad the damage was. Complete the screens as necessary.
The last screen is the ‘Thank you’ one, the system may re-boot once more normally.
That’s it! All done.