XP PRO WON'T BOOT

[Guest rwalker]

i know you all usually prefer to have the exact error message, but I don't have it so please bear with me.

ok, a relative of mine was having an issue with his north bridge fan. It was getting loud so he put some lube on it (don't worry he knows not to and didn't spill on the MOBO). The pc was running during this "operation", yes it makes me shudder also. Anywho..the pc froze and upon an attempted reboot, the boot.ini was not found and the nt detect failed. I am thinking of either fixing the boot.ini or going to a restore point, however i cannot find the post that recommended it.

The computer cannot reach a dos prompt F8, it keeps rebooting once the errors come up. Any thoughts???? Doing a restore is my thought on way to proceed.....

[MSNwar]

Wait, lets back up, okay.

The PC was on.

He remove the fan wire from the motherboard with the PC running?

Is he daft?

Anyone that would do such a thing needs more help then we can give them. I mean they probally remove floppy disks from the drive when the drive light is on? These types need basic PC classes or someone to sit down with them from the initial start-up and walk them through the basics. Believe me, I know some very competent graphics artist with Corel and Adobe, but know nothing about crossing the street when the walk-light is red.

Anyway, check the hardware in the PC and make sure everything is secure such as the hard drive cable(s). Did he accidently dislodge the hard drive cable just a bit from either the hard drive itself or the motherboard? Press the connectors and insure a firm fit.

Software wise. Run setup again to replace the missing files. Then run Norton Utilities or something and see what else is wrong with other things.

[ThA_FiLeR]

Is he daft?

lol MSNwar.

Anyway, I would just use a restore point, if you can't get to the restore program you should use your windos xp cd for it.

[Guest rwalker]

let me explain...he just uncovered the sticker on the center of the fan to add lube to the bearing....how do you restore from a dos prompt using the cd

[MSNwar]

DOS. c:\setup.exe

I am sorry rwalker. I did not mean to be rude.

But yea, what ThA_FiLeR said.

This is XP? Is the CD bootable? Enter the BIOS and set the boot sequence to boot from a CD-ROM, A, C. Boot the PC and hit enter when prompted to boot from a CD. Depends on the machine but thats the general idea.

Where the CD is not bootable. Go to bootdisk.com and download a boot disk for XP, Win98, whatever your friend is running. Do the same thing as above minus the BIOS configuration.

You can also start windows in normal mode, insert a Windows XP CD and run setup from the CD itself.

[Guest rwalker]

maybe i am the one that is daft...

but...how does one do a system restore once they have booted using the xp cd....i believe, that he can get to this point...but he cannot get to a dos prompt by other means as the pc won't boot to that point...

btw, no offense taken .... i read this forum quite often so i understand the humorr

fyi...if ya have IM my handle is email is rcw1974@msn.com

[MSNwar]

You don't need to do a system restore because it won't help the boot.ini Once the boot.ini is corrupted your screwed.

Yes, you can rebuild the files manually but I don't think you want to do that. You want to get the Operating System setup right, so your friend can get back to using his PC. Remember, you will not be there everytime something needs fixed. You need to rebuild the boot.ini and some other files. Thats a pain in the arse. Re-run setup and let Windows rebuild all the files for you.

Screw the restore point at this stage. With a corrupted boot.ini you need to re-run setup. After the setup is complete make a new restore point.

edit: Was the PC working okay before all this? Was the PC rebooting itself before he fixed the fan? If it was okay before he mucked around inside I would lean towards a hardware problem. Like check the cables dude.

[Guest rwalker]

will the entire OS and files be lost, so long as he doesn't format the drive it shouldn't right????

[MSNwar]

Re-running setup only overwites windows own files.

You will not loose any documents etc.

You may have to reinstall some programs. Maybe.

You should create a New Restore Point after the setup is complete.

Just don't make the mistake of reformatting the hard drive.

[MSNwar]

I suggest you do the job.

Don't trust him to do it right.

[FthrJACK]

do me a favour, look all over the pc, the mobo, graphics cards, take all the cards out infact, pci and agp, check there is no oil in them or on the cards.

put it together again and try this,

put the cd in, boot the pc.

go to the repair console, it looks like DOS.

type in

sfc /scannow

this will check the system for damaged or missing files and replace them.

hope this helps!

next time turn the thing off!!! messing with a fan when running can cause a short (that would include putting oil in the bearing, which then gets on the bushes, causing a short)

a shorting fan can take out any other device with it, be it a hard disc, floppy drive, the motherboard, PSU etc!

you connect to fans to splitters on the power supply, others on main boards, just think of the expensive hardware a $10 fan can kill. it aint worth it.

This is written by a guy who not so long back unplugged a fan while the pc was on and it blew his CD combo drive worth £175.

ouch!

[LS_Dragons]

BOOT.INI is not a terribly complex file -- here is the contents of mine. If you know what drives and folders are involved - you can re-build with any text editor and place in root of boot hard drive:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

C:\="Microsoft Windows"

LS_Dragons

[zipp51]

I agree with FthrJack on the sfc /scannow solution.It works believe me.Windows protected files will be restored.This works with win2k also.Just go into bios and select the cdrom as your first boot device.It will be in the "Advanced Setup" section.If there is electrical shorting damage to the mobo,you will have problems,some as small as a pci slot not working to a completely haywire electronic nightmare.Be patient though and turn off the power as previously stated,and shine some light so you can see any oil bridgeing anywhere.Remember even with the power off an atx board still has power retained within it so use a ground strap.Good luck.

[Guest]

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

C:\="Microsoft Windows"

LS_Dragons

I know this is a stupid question, but...

Can I edit my boot.ini file, to not show my graphics card specs when I first start up the system, so I can boot up faster?

[Guest rwalker]

some updates.

the command sfc/scannow ...no good

nothing else worked, he had a ghosted image, but it's too old (4months)

so... the end result was a fix mbr which trashed the partition...oh well live and learn

thanks for the input