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Summary: There are a few things to take a look at with your system if your computer locks up and won't boot. My computer locks up and won't boot. What do I do? Your computer locks up, crashes, stalls or otherwise fails to completely boot up into Windows. That's particularly painful, since most all of our diagnostic tools require that Windows be running. Diagnosing the problem with a computer that won't boot can be difficult. In this article we'll look at some of the resources that you do have available, and try to gather a little information about the type of problem you might be experiencing. I'll start at a successfully booting Windows, and work backwards to a completely dead machine. • • Loading User Settings One of the last steps that Windows takes before being ready for use is to load the personal settings for the user logging in. That includes settings within the Windows Registry, saved network connections, and the security settings for the account. This step exercises a lot of different areas on the machine, so if it hangs, or is exceptionally slow here it could be for many reasons. Things to check include disk space and fragmentation, physical errors on the disk holding the swap file, and network connectivity that might impact restoring those saved connections. In particular, in a Domain based environment network connectivity can be a particular problem as the system tries to contact the domain controller. (Domains are common in business settings as opposed to a Workgroup, more common in small business and home). • Blue Screens and Other Hangs A "Blue Screen" is the name given to the blue screen of strange numbers and information that can sometimes come up if your machine crashes. Essentially any blue screen, hang, crash or lock-up that happens after the Windows logo is displayed falls into this category. If that happens repeatedly during boot it could be anything from a bad device driver to spyware to a virus. The best first step to take is to attempt to boot in what's called "Safe Mode". Safe mode disables a number of operating system components, possibly avoiding the component that might be causing the problem. Once in safe mode you can try running the system file checker, your anti virus software, anti-spyware software, and possibly get windows updates. The Microsoft Knowledgebase has an article on A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP that details how to start Safe Mode, and its options. If Safe Mode itself won't work, the next step back is something called the Recover Console. You can install it on your machine before problems happen, as described in this Knowledgebase article How to Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows XP. • Hangs before the Windows Logo If you can't actually get anything to come up - by that I mean that you never even see the initial Windows logo, you can run the Recovery console from your Windows XP Installation CD. This article: Windows XP Crashed? Here's Help gives a step-by-step overview of the process. This also applies if you didn't install the recovery console beforehand. Regardless of how you got there, the recovery console will allow you to copy files, undo a recent installation, or fix the master boot record should that have become corrupt. • Operating System? What Operating System? One of the scarier messages is "Operating System Not Found". It implies that the operating system on your hard disk isn't there any more. First, remove any floppy from the machine. It's a common error - when you reboot the computer will try to boot from it, not find an operating system and halt. Assuming that wasn't the problem, get out and boot from your Windows XP Installation CD. You can try the Recovery Console I just discussed - sometimes fixing the MBR (Master Boot Record) is all that's needed. Other times the recovery is more involved, in which case this article by Microsoft MVP Michael Stevens - How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install can guide you. • Hard Disk? What Hard Disk? Things start to get a little scarier when your computer doesn't appear to even have a hard disk. When software like the Recovery Console doesn't even see that you have a hard disk in your machine, things get interesting. The most common cause of this in a previously working machine is that the CMOS memory, which keeps your hardware and BIOS configuration settings, has lost its contents. That can happen due to anything from a power spike to errant software - but the most common cause on older machines is that the little battery that keeps the CMOS alive has worn out. The type and location will vary from machine to machine. CMOS settings on some machines are what tells the computer what kind of hard disk you have. You'll probably want to review the settings in your BIOS to make sure they are correct. Typically most brand name computers include a print-out of their CMOS settings when they come new, or their technical support resources may be able to help. A misconfiguration can "look like" a hard disk to the BIOS, but in fact be wrong. And, of course, there is the possibility of hardware failure of the drive itself. If that's what you suspect, it's probably time to touch bases with the manufacturer or a local repair technician. • BIOS & POST If your computer doesn't even get so far as to try the hard disk, or perhaps not even print anything on the screen, you probably do have some type of hardware problem. For example if the computer simply beeps a few times and then does nothing, then that's the POST telling you something is wrong. For what ever reason it might not be able to display an error message, so it simply beeps in a pattern to tell you what it's found. They vary based on the brand of your computer or BIOS, but POST beep codes can often give a technician a quick idea of exactly what might be wrong. And finally, when you turn on the power, if your computer does nothing at all, obviously something is seriously wrong. In my experience, it's typically the power supply that has failed, however it's also possible that critical components on the motherboard have failed, or that a peripheral card has been inserted improperly or has failed in such a way as to prevent the rest of the system from working at all. • Today's computers, and the operating systems that run them, are incredibly complex animals. Each problem will have it's own unique cause. Hopefully this overview, and some of the resources listed below, will help you at least understand the nature of problems you may be having, and perhaps even help you resolve them yourself. Related:
• Recent Comments
I have had my hp laptop (windows xp) for about 2 and half years now. It has only crashed once and i had to completely reinstall windows with a cd. It has been maybe a year since that and the other day I noticed that the same blue screen came up after the windows logo. It said that it was checking for disk corruption. Now the last time this happened, after the blue screen came a black screen with some options u could choose (i do not remember exactly what they were) but with every option that you chose, it would restart the computer and would go back to the same black screen. but in this case once the blue screen disapeared, the windows log-in came up. i successfully logged into windows and ran my norton full system scan and nothing came up. I also made sure to update my norton securtity and i updated the computer with the microsoft update. I am confused because the computer seems fine. Do you think that the computer detected something and was able to fix it? Posted by: Sarah at July 11, 2008 04:13 PMWish I could help but I can't get any myself. I had it in for two days with some techs and they reckon they tested everything and nothing was wrong. I figure it is a mainboard problem and for sure the bios is stuffed, but how do you fix this if nothing boots? The new board will be a Gigabyte GA-MA 790FX-DS5 Any comments? This system is a little over 12 months old, so as far as warranty I have no idea whether the old board is covered. I am no genious but any help would be appreciated. i have a proble last weak can anyone can help me about this problem.. please help...!!!!!! Posted by: arnold at July 26, 2008 11:01 PMMy computer boots up, beep twice then it said a boot file in my C:\Window\system can't be found or it has been corrupted, and it asked me to use the Window XP disc to repair the file. I used the CD which I got from my computer manufactor to restore and repair the system, after that it started up. I turned it off on that day and the next day when I started it up again, it gave me the same message. Could be so many things. My gut reaction is to suspect the hard drive. I'd be tempted to run SpinRite on it, if you don't mind paying for that. -Leo Posted by: Ngoc at August 5, 2008 06:48 AM I have a the same problem.. I want to reformat may computer after a middle of setup the computer hang up ang say "you have no hard disk, you can not continue your formating pls click f3" . hen after clicking f3 same process againt can't proceed. help me. Posted by: jay flores at August 8, 2008 05:48 PMRecently I keep getting a home page, just like the original one, however it alway says "blank page" and then my computer locks up. I can never delete or get rid of this page without rebooting every time. I have ran several anti-virus programs, however it just continues to happen. How can I get rid of this horrible problem. my computer make continuously beeping noise when i turn on it after the bios setup page and it wont boot the window i tried restarting the comp many time and cleaning out all the parts but nothing seem to work.how can i get my comp to work again? thank you Posted by: kevin at August 16, 2008 01:56 PMMy computer freezes after working fine through different programs, sometimes within a couple of minutes and at other times after as much a two hours. My only option is to manually turn it off and the then back on again. I'll often get a message "The system has recovered from a serious error," with a list of codes: BCCode :100000ea BCP1844568E8 BCP2 : 84F08420 BCP3 : B1914CB4 BCP4: 00000001 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 2_0 Product : 768-1 and refers to files: C:\DOCUME~1\DAVIDW~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER7f67.dir00\Mini082508-02.dmp and C:\DOCUME~1\DAVIDW~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER7F67.dir00\sysdata.xml. my computer goes to the black screen where it ses rmr or somit in the top corner then comes up with options start normally safe mode an safe mode with networking and 2 others iv tried them all an it goes bak to the same screen of options When I try to power up my computer, the monitor shows the ACER logo, the green power light on the hard drive comes on and red light flashes a few times and that's it. It doesn't do anything else. Any ideas? Posted by: Shannon at August 26, 2008 09:20 PMPost a comment on "My computer locks up and won't boot. What do I do?":
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