Computer hanging on Windows XP screen

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
6,212
Location
UK
Hey,

Got up this morning to check some emails and the like as i do each morning

I turned the machine on, standard stuff and i sit there waiting for the windows screen with the blue bar that goes from side to side... but its taking longer than usual, i leave the room to do afew more morning things and come back 10 minutes later to find that its still on the same screen.

i sit there for another 2-3 minutes watching it and thinking about what hardware or software changes i made yesterday which could be effecting it...

the only things i installed were:

Smart FTP - freeware, downloaded and installed that night.
Adobe Updates - 200meg in size.

I tried restarting the machine after 15-20 minutes of waiting and it came up with the windows didnt start normally last time message, safemode etc etc but my USB keyboard wouldnt let me change the selection :rolleyes:

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this? I'm gonna try booting in safe mode when i get home if i can get my hands on a standard keyboard, unplug afew hard drives / extra USB items and generally grab an up to date back-up if possible.

No hardware changes have been made in the last month so im doubting its hardware related :( guess if all else fails i'll blame windows and format :(

Any suggestions more than welcome,

Cheers,
 
took another look at it last night and my western digital raptor was only showing in the bios occasionally... checked connections and tried to repair windows XP but no joy :(

ordered a new hard drive - should arrive today

what are the chances i can boot up windows XP on the new drive and try and recover some data from the fallen raptor?
 
As long as the Raptor's sectors arent too damaged (if at all) then Windows should pick it up and allow you to open the contents of the disk and pull any data you need off it.
 
You may have done this but have you tried going into safe mode (F8)?

Also I installed some soft and my comp would go into a loop at the bios.
For some reason it had reset some bios options.

So I uninstalled the soft then used system restore n safe mode.
Went into the bios and set that up all is ok.

I did notice that my WD AAKS HD did not show up once.
But once i loaded system defaults in the bios all was ok.
 
You should be able to retrieve the files you need off your Raptor once a new install is done on the new drive. Sectors normally go on the windows boot and OS files first as they are used far more than the other ones you store your own files on.

A safe bet would be to unplug your Raptor first or disable it in bios before you install your new drive and add the OS to it. Once the OS is installed, then plug the Raptor back in and retrieve files as needed.
 
Hi, yes i tried safe mode, it started loading in files then simply rebooted :(

A safe bet would be to unplug your Raptor first or disable it in bios before you install your new drive and add the OS to it. Once the OS is installed, then plug the Raptor back in and retrieve files as needed.

thanks,

the drive should have arrived by the time i get home from work as long as someone was in to sign for it, i'll be unplugging all drives during the windows installation and then go from there... thanks :)
 
Did you have any cd/dvd's in your drive? my pc sometimes hangs there until i take the cd out.

i do, yes... i might give it a go in a bit

i seem to be having trouble connecting to any of the other hard drives on my machine

my D: has the installation files i usually use to recover a PC back to a semi-workable state - also where my backups sit.

Unfortunatly in computer management - disk management the drives have a red X over them and the only option i have is: Convert to dynamic disk... but it warns me all info on the disk will be lost if i continue... not what i want :(

any way round this, i seem to remember just activating the drive previously - not had this one before...

how do i get round that and to the info i want :( ?
 
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