Hangs at xp logo screen, can't run safe mode

8227 Views 32 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Ka3gee, Apr 12, 2011

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · Apr 9, 2011

Hi,

I have been trying to repair my XP installation with an XP CD. Once the repair completed and restarted the computer, it now hangs at the XP logo screen. The blue boxes scroll across the loading bar, and occasionally slow to a halt. After about 15-20 minutes, a blue screen with a small windows logo in the upper left corner tells me that windows setup is restarting. This hangs for about 10 minutes, then goes to a black screen.

When I try to run Safe Mode, I get a message that "Windows setup cannot run in safe mode", and must restart.

I would appreciate very much if anyone can help me through this problem.

Thank you very much,
-Kenny

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1 - 20 of 33 Posts

Blade_Jones

· #2 · Apr 9, 2011

A "repair install" only works about 1/2 the time. Better to back up your data, zero wipe and reinstall.

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #3 · Apr 9, 2011

Update: I let the black screen sit for a while and it finally switched to the blue setup installation screen. However the mouse cursor is tracking very slowly, and the progress indicator has moved from 39 min. to 34 min. over about 3 hours.

I've backed up a lot of data, but I use several programs with hundreds of plug-ins and project files. A reinstall seems like it would be more trouble. Thanks for responding.

-Kenny

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 9, 2011

Windows repair install runs PAINFULLY slowly

Hi,

I've been trying to complete a Windows XP repair installation on my laptop, but once my computer gets to the Windows XP logo screen it begins to run very, very slowly.

The little blue boxes crawl across the loading bar for about 15 min., then the screen goes black for about 20 min. Eventually I get to the blue Windows setup screen, where it tells me there are 39 min. left, and three hours later it says 34 min. left. It stayed at 34 min. for a couple of hours, so I think it may be hanging there.

I also can't run in Safe Mode, because it tells me that windows can't setup in Safe Mode.

All of this began after running a Malwarebytes scan for some malware and "fixing" the files. That led to an inability to boot because of a missing "c:\windows\system32\config\system" problem. I tried to repair the installation with a Windows XP cd, and things seemed to go smoothly except for some missing files. Ever since it restarted to complete the repair install, it has been crawling very slowly.

Perhaps there is something in the BIOS that can be changed? This is really a difficult problem to deal with because it literally takes hours just to try a reboot.
If anyone can help me with this I would be very thankful. I'm at my wits end here.

Thank you very much,

-Kenny

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Daifne

· #5 · Apr 9, 2011

I would suspect that you may have a bad hard drive. Get the Western Digital Lifeguard boot CD and test it from there. WD Support / Downloads / EIDE (PATA) / WD Caviar Blue

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #6 · Apr 10, 2011

Daifne said:
I would suspect that you may have a bad hard drive. Get the Western Digital Lifeguard boot CD and test it from there. WD Support / Downloads / EIDE (PATA) / WD Caviar Blue

Thanks for the advice! However I don't have a Western Digital drive but I did find a similar checker for Hitachi, it came out clean.

I'm wondering if there are driver problems that I might be able to fix through the recovery console. I am in the middle of a repair install though. Has anyone ever dealt with this?

Thanks for your help,

-Kenny

Daifne

· #7 · Apr 10, 2011

It doesn't matter what brand your hard drive is. The WD tools will work on any drive.

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #8 · Apr 10, 2011

Daifne said:
It doesn't matter what brand your hard drive is. The WD tools will work on any drive.

Thanks the advice Daifne, and the drive checks out fine. I'm wondering where to go from here...???

Daifne

· #9 · Apr 10, 2011

I think you're going to have to bite the bullet and do a full reformat reinstall. You did say you had your data backed up, that's good. You're going to have a job ahead of you reinstalling the programs and their plugins. Sorry.

spunk.funk

· #10 · Apr 10, 2011

Let the XP Repair Install finish, even if it takes all night. It probably will still fail, but worth a shot. Chances are great your going to have to reinstall anyways.

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #11 · Apr 10, 2011

spunk.funk said:
Let the XP Repair Install finish, even if it takes all night. It probably will still fail, but worth a shot. Chances are great your going to have to reinstall anyways.

Thanks for the reply, I think that will be my plan. If it doesn't finish, what are the exact repercussions for my programs and data?

-Kenny

Daifne

· #12 · Apr 10, 2011

If you have an external drive, you might be able to boot up your system with a boot CD and copy the data over to the external drive. A live Ubuntu disk works for this: Download | Ubuntu

You want to make sure that you boot from the CD and not install Ubuntu.

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #13 · Apr 10, 2011 (Edited)

Alright, a bit of progress: I can now get to a blank wallpaper and can access Task Manager. Things are still incredibly slow, but have I gained any ground here?

Maybe there is something I could do with the Device Manager?

**edit: I see an exclamation mark next to "Microsoft System Management BIOS Driver" in the Device Manager.

thanks again,
-Kenny

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #14 · Apr 10, 2011

Well, I can access everything now that my icons have finally loaded. However, startup is still incredibly slow, and once it's up everything moves at about 5% normal speed.

What can I do now to fix this??

Thanks,
-Kenny

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #15 · Apr 10, 2011

Allright, well my computer is now running Windows, very slowly, so I guess this thread should be closed. I appreciate the help all.

-Kenny

AlbertMC2

· #16 · Apr 10, 2011

Hi

If you still want help:
How slow is the PC getting into Windows to a point you can actually work?
Is it slow getting to the welcome screen?
Or slow between welcome screen and actually being able to work?
How much memory do you have?
How much free hard drive space do you have?
What sort of CPU do you have?

1. You can look in your event viewer
(Start -> Run -> type eventvwr.msc -> ok)
at the time of startup and see if there are any errors. You especially want to look in the System and Application Logs.

2. You can also try a clean boot to see what is causing the lag
Perform a clean startup to determine whether background programs are interfering with your game or program

3. You have also run the Hitachi hard drive diagnostics tool which just looks at the physical drive. Therefore run chkdsk which will look at the file system. To do this go to
Start -> Run -> type chkdsk c: /r -> click Ok . When asked if you want to force a dismount say No. When asked to schedule the check at the next startup say Yes. Restart your PC to allow chkdsk to run.

4. You can also run Autoruns. Save the file to disk, unzip it and run. Agree to the Eula and wait for it to gather information. Once it is done save the information to a file, zip the file and attach it to your next post.

5. You can also download and run this application: BSOD_XP_v1.3_jcgriff2_PROD.exe.
Once it has finished running zip the folder TSF_XP_Support which can be found in your Documents folder.
Attach the zipped file to your next post.
(Usually this program is used to gather info about Blue Screen Exception Errors however I am more interested in the event logs and the System Info it might provide)

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Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #17 · Apr 10, 2011 (Edited)

AlbertMC2 said:
Hi

If you still want help:
How slow is the PC getting into Windows to a point you can actually work?
Is it slow getting to the welcome screen?
Or slow between welcome screen and actually being able to work?
How much memory do you have?
How much free hard drive space do you have?
What sort of CPU do you have?

1. You can look in your event viewer
(Start -> Run -> type eventvwr.msc -> ok)
at the time of startup and see if there are any errors. You especially want to look in the System and Application Logs.

2. You can also try a clean boot to see what is causing the lag
Perform a clean startup to determine whether background programs are interfering with your game or program

3. You have also run the Hitachi hard drive diagnostics tool which just looks at the physical drive. Therefore run chkdsk which will look at the file system. To do this go to
Start -> Run -> type chkdsk c: /r -> click Ok . When asked if you want to force a dismount say No. When asked to schedule the check at the next startup say Yes. Restart your PC to allow chkdsk to run.

4. You can also run Autoruns. Save the file to disk, unzip it and run. Agree to the Eula and wait for it to gather information. Once it is done save the information to a file, zip the file and attach it to your next post.

5. You can also download and run this application: BSOD_XP_v1.3_jcgriff2_PROD.exe.
Once it has finished running zip the folder TSF_XP_Support which can be found in your Documents folder.
Attach the zipped file to your next post.
(Usually this program is used to gather info about Blue Screen Exception Errors however I am more interested in the event logs and the System Info it might provide)

Hello, and thanks for replying!

I have a Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz, 2GB of ram, out of a 120 GB HD I have about 1.25 GB of free space on my C: partition, and about 7 GB free on my E: partition.

Everything starts up fine until the black screen with the Windows XP logo. There, the blue progress bars slow to a stop, then stop and start for about 10-15 min. Then a black screen for 10-15min, then the welcome screen. After that it runs a little faster, but still very slow (a few seconds between a mouse click and a response.)

I have previously run chckdsk /r from the Recovery Console, and it fixed 1 error on the drive. I'm now running MEMtest86 in SafeMode to check the RAM. So far 1 pass and no errors.

Thank you for your help, I will report on my Memtest findings after it runs for a while.

-Kenny

**edit: Windows runs faster in Safe Mode, but still slower than normal. I also noticed that My Computer properties is not showing any Service Pack.

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Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #18 · Apr 10, 2011

So I ran Memtest86 overnight, 11 passes with 0 errors.

I then booted into Safe Mode and checked the event viewer. There were three system log entries since startup: 2 eventlogs (6005, 6009) and one disk warning (34).

I then ran Chkdsk /r in Safe Mode, but when I tried to reboot into Safe Mode the system hanged at a file called MUP.SYS.

So I ran Chkdsk /r from the Recovery Console instead, there were no problems.

Now I have tried booting normally, and, after taking the same long time at the black Windows logo screen, I see that Chkdsk is running the scan that was supposed to run on reboot. I'm still waiting on this though.

I am going to try a clean boot, Autoruns, and the BSOD tool, but I would like to know if these are all okay to do in Safe Mode? (If I can get passed this MUP.SYS)?

Thank you so much for your time and effort,

-Kenny

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spunk.funk

· #19 · Apr 10, 2011

You can run those in Safe Mode. You can also go to Start/Run and type SFC /scannow and press enter. Put your XP CD in the drive and it will replace any missing files from the disc.

Ka3gee

Discussion Starter · #20 · Apr 11, 2011

spunk.funk said:
You can run those in Safe Mode. You can also go to Start/Run and type SFC /scannow and press enter. Put your XP CD in the drive and it will replace any missing files from the disc.

I would like to run SFC /scannow, but a new problem has cropped up: I can't get into Safe Mode because the loading hangs at MUP.SYS.

Jeez. Do you know of any solutions to this one?

Thanks,
-Kenny

1 - 20 of 33 Posts

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