windows hangs on cold boot, then fine on second boot. help :)

[graysky]

For some odd reason, WinXP started hanging on boot (on "Starting XP" screen). It seems to do it on a cold boot regularly now that I added a new keyboard (natural USB) but I could be mistaken. If I hit reset it usually works the 2nd time. Anyway, I'm wondering windows logs the bootup to a file I can look at to see where it got locked? Something similar to /var/log/dmesg in the LINUX world?

Thanks.

Edited June 25, 2007 by graysky

[uid0]

You could edit boot.ini and add /bootlog /noguiboot /sos

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...on/bootini.mspx

[graysky]

Thanks... tried it but still no help... it only writes a log on a successful boot.

What happens is on a cold boot it locks up on the loading windows screen. The little blue bars just stop, no response from the keyboard, etc. I have to hit reset. The second time up, it goes into windows just fine. It doesn't write a log unless it successfully gets past the part where it hangs up.

Edited June 25, 2007 by graysky

[DonDamm]

You might want to check in the bios where you say yes or no to Is your OS Plug N Play? If you say no, the bios assigns all the irqs and such, but if you say yes it lets the OS do it. Whichever way it's set, try doing it the other way. Since the advent of virtualized IRQs we mostly have forgotten the pain of them, but once and while they still rear their heads! :^)

[cluberti]

One other thing you can try - if you've got a PS/2 (not USB) keyboard attached to that box (or it's a laptop), configure your machine for a complete memory dump via the keyboard (instructions), and then shut down and reboot. Once you're "stuck", try the keyboard sequence (hold down the RIGHT-hand CTRL key and press the SCROLL LOCK key TWICE) - if the box bugchecks, you're not hung (the kernel was running) and the dump will tell us likely who or what is holding you up. However, if you set it up correctly and the keyboard sequence does NOT bugcheck the box, you've very likely got a hardware or BIOS issue.

[graysky]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I dunno what I did to fix it, but <knocking on wood> it seems to be better now. I may have been a function of a low vcore on the machine but I can't prove it.