Desktop not loading windows xp

Hey there, My computer will not load XP anymore. It just continues to go into a loop to where you can choose Start from last working config, safe mode, safe mode with command prompt and so on. I chosed each one and it still doesnt work, it just cycles through a reboot and sends me back to the list.

Someone on my car message board recommended to get a new hard drive and load XP on that and transfer the info something like that.

What can I do at this point? What do you recommend that isnt to hard to do. ANY options could be hazardous to your data. Get your hands on a true XP CD with the same version that you have. If you Sony gave you an XP disk, that may work. You want to get in to Recovery Console. What you do is put the XP CD in the drive, boot up or restart, press a key when it says "Press any key to boot Next XP setup will start off the CD. It will come to the first blue screen and one option is "Recover" by pressing "R".

Do that. This will fix any fixable hard drive errors. When it's done, type "exit", and take out the CD as it boots up. See what happens. If that doesn't work, do you know exactly when it started doing this? Was the system fine, then turned off, then it was bad? Was it in suspend mode or hibernate mode?

If the system messed up while in suspend or hibernate, and is therefore trying to "wake up", you can try taking some RAM out of the PC. It then won't try to wake up, but will give and error and load normally. If that isn't it, obvioulsy any recent changes to the system, if you can undo them, do it. The last option, which is more risky. Is to do a Repair Install. In the setup program, if you choose to install XP, it will eventually give you the option to Repair Windows. It is quite an obvious selection.

A Repair Install basically reloads Windows on top of itself, replaceing and refreshing the system files and hardware. Without deleting your files and programs.

I might warn that if you do a repair install, it will eventually ask for your keycode. Which should be on a sticker on your case. So if you can, if Repair Install and Recovery Console are available on the disk that Sony gave you, use that. Hope this leads you anywhere, just don't do anything if it says you will loose data or format etc Thanks for your reply. Basically on Thursday night I had too much to drink and was to lazy to think how to turn it off and basically hit the power button, instead of logging off properly.

I came back Friday night after work to turn it on and thats when it started. So Im not sure what happened. But they seemed fine. Once this occurs, the partition boot sector takes over and begins loading Windows. If the master boot record is corrupt, the partition boot sector can't do its job and Windows won't boot. If you suspect Windows XP won't boot because the master boot record has been corrupted, you can use the Recovery Console tool Fixmbr to fix it.

For example, the device pathname format for a standard bootable drive C configuration would look like this:. When Windows XP encounters a fatal error, the default setting for handling such an error is to automatically reboot the system. If the error occurs while Windows XP is booting, the operating system will become stuck in a reboot cycle--rebooting over and over instead of starting up normally.

In that case, you'll need to disable the option for automatically restarting on system failure. When Windows XP begins to boot up and you see the message Please select the operating system to start or hear the single beep, press [F8] to display the Windows Advanced Options Menu. Now, Windows XP will hang up when it encounters the error and with any luck, it will display a stop message you can use to diagnose the problem.

If you can't seem to repair a Windows XP system that won't boot and you have a recent backup, you can restore the system from the backup media. The method you use to restore the system will depend on what backup utility you used, so you'll need to follow the utility's instructions on how to perform a restore operation. If you can't repair a Windows XP system that won't boot and you don't have a recent backup, you can perform an in-place upgrade.

Doing so reinstalls the operating system into the same folder, just as if you were upgrading from one version of Windows to another. An in-place upgrade will usually solve most, if not all, Windows boot problems. This screen will prompt you to press R to repair the selected installation or to press [Esc] to install a fresh copy of Windows XP. In this case, initiating a repair operation is synonymous with performing an in-place upgrade, so you'll need to press R.

When you do so, Setup will examine the disk drives in the system. It will then begin performing the in-place upgrade. Keep in mind that after you perform an in-place upgrade or repair installation, you must reinstall all updates to Windows.

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Please note: Do not post advertisements, offensive material, profanity, or personal attacks. Please remember to be considerate of other members. All submitted content is subject to our Terms Of Use. Share Flag. All Answers. Collapse -. It sounds like your profile. I'm using Windows XP. Back to Windows Forum.