windows refuses to load

[vidas7de7jesus7]

Last Thursday, my family computer decided to go on the fritz. The computer turns on fine, and loads up until it gets to the loading Windows screen. The blue bar marches across the screen and then the computer reboots. I put the Windows CD in and was going to reinstall Windows until I discovered that apparently it is not acknowledging the partition that makes up my hard drive. It shows that my hard drive has no partitions. I had hoped to reinstall Windows and save my data. Is there any way to do this? If it helps, I have a few Kubuntu CDs laying around.

[Ichbin]

if it doesnt acknowledge the partition at all, then your might have hardware issues at hand.

Are you able to make it a Slave drive and see if anything is on it?

[slytherock]

2 possible things:
1- Drivers issue: have you installed new hardware lately?
2- Boot.ini corruption: hope you didn't trash it...

[moon111]

Umm, stating which OS might help.

[calumc]

if you do have some linux disks around you can just boot live with them and have a look around, check things like boot.ini.
worst case youll have to back up and reformat

[vidas7de7jesus7]

Oh, sorry about that. I'm running Windows XP SP2 Home edition. Now, what is this boot.ini you speak of. Is there any way to repair it? I was not manually editing it, but it is possible that it corrupted itself. I'm currently working on another computer, but when I'm finished with it, I'll poke around with the linux CD. Another thing that may help is that this has happened before. To fix it before, I put in the Windows CD and it magically started working. Unfortunately, that's not working this time. Is it possible the hard drive is going bad? If so, I'll just replace it and go on my merry way. Fortunately, most of my music and photos are backed up, just not all my Opera settings and everything. Oh well.

[Eclecticos]

Well there are a few ways to go about it.

Option A. Startup with MSDOS Boot Disk, and Edit the Boot.ini ~ Manually
If everything checks out. . Go Command: bootcfg /rebuild


Option B:

1. Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD into the computer. Note: If you have a system recovery CD or restore CD these steps will likely not work for your computer.

2. Reboot the computer with the CD and press any key when prompted to press any key to boot from the CD. If you do not receive this prompt and/or are not able to boot from the CD see document CH000217.

3. Once in the Microsoft Setup menu press R to open the recovery console.

4. Select the operating system you wish to use; if you only have Windows XP on the computer you will only have one prompt.

5. Once prompted for the password enter the Admin password and press enter.

6. Once at the command prompt type bootcfg /rebuild to start the rebuild process.

7. The rebuild process will step you through a number of steps depending upon how many operating systems you have on the computer and how the computer is setup. Below is a listing of the common steps you are likely going to encounter.


Option C. ReFormat and Reinstall Windows.

[Eclecticos]

Oop Forgot to mention..
Option D. How to Edit the Boot.ini from DOS:

1. Type msconfig to start the System Configuration utility.
2. Click the Boot.ini tab.
3. Edit the file, and Save it.

Should look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

Here (http://www.thpc.info/how/editbootini.html) is more Information.

[Crazy Buddhist]

The computer turns on fine, and loads up until it gets to the loading Windows screen. The blue bar marches across the screen and then the computer reboots. I put the Windows CD in and was going to reinstall Windows until I discovered that apparently it is not acknowledging the partition that makes up my hard drive.

1) If windows is loading to some point then the partition is intact and working

2) When windows reboots like this it is often due to hardware driver corruption ... as windows loads the corrupted driver it causes a reboot.

3) an easy way to see if it is this is to hit F8 when starting and boot into safe mode which loads the minimum windows and driver configuration. You don't mention if you have tried this.

4) if you can boot into safe mode it is probably a question of working out which driver needs reinstalling.

[slytherock]

I second Crazy Buddhist, I know I mention the boot.ini, it can be, but my first choice is driver issue. Last time it happened to me, I had to boot in safe mode, uninstall the video drivers, then reinstalled them.

[Crazy Buddhist]

I had to boot in safe mode, uninstall the video drivers, then reinstalled them.

My money is on the Video card on this one too. Video cards love rebooting PC's when their drivers are corrupt - it's like they know how annoying it must be - but after all, they just need care and attention like us all :D

So .. IF it boots into safe mode then while you are there try this:

a) uninstall the video card in control panel so the drivers don't load when you reboot ..

b) reboot

c) if Windows starts you have solved your problem

d) cancel the found new hardware wizard or it may find the corrupt drivers

e) download new drivers for your Video Card or use the disk if you have it to install them afresh.

[vidas7de7jesus7]

Well, using Windows recovery console, I rebuilt the mbr and now it works. I'm still planning on reformatting though, but now I can back up my config files. Thanks for all the help.