Topic: Computer Boot problems due to power cut

[gordo]

Darn Electric companies....  At about 10.30 last nite BST, I was installing hallmark card studio, as we had some birthdays coming up,  I letting it run itself, but part the way through we had a power-cut, lasting a minute or so.  I didn't bother to check or turn the tower on again until this morning, Guess what.. it won't fire up, it gets to the XP logo with the little blue bar moving and then goes into a loop, back to reboot to logo and will continue if I leave it.   Also it kicked the router all over the place, but that was easy to fix with a reset and re-enter details.

I am a little stuck as to what to try first, I have a copy of XP Portable that I can hopefully run from a usb stick.  I haven't got recovery consul installed. The only other thing I was thinking of doing what switch the Har5d drives round doing a fresh install to recover data and then start over again.

Is there anything I am missing to try.

[bigguy]

I have the exact same problem right now with the computer hooked up to the t.v. I will let ya know what I figure out.

[gordo]

cheers, all stops in my house for a bit 24...start again tomorrow with hopefully a calm and fresh mind

[Shamus]

hit f8 before it gets to the windows xp screen and choose diesable automatic restart on error so at least you can see if there is a blue screen?.

[bigguy]

Good idea Shamus. I'll try that out myself later.

[gordo]

I just managed to get into safe mode,   would go for with networking. so at least I was able to back up all my data and important stuff and now running the upgrade option to see what happens.  I am relieved to get to my data as I had several pictures of my late mother, and would have been gutted.   They are now backed up to cd.

I can see me having to do a format and fresh start.

[Shamus]

Try vga mode instead of safemode, you could be dealing with a bad video driver, or while in safemode you can open msconfig throught the run window and turn off all non microsoft services and start up items and try that way.

[gordo]

I managed to do a repair windows which has cured the start up problem, but there is a little problem over video, no matter what I do I can't get windows to recognise the nvida card, even installing the drivers doesn't work; it gets so far and then the installer closes with the message that it cannot find a nvida card.    While going through the repair/install a screen flashed asking for two files it wasn't there long enough to write them down. 

Thats as far as I have got

[Shamus]

does it see anything in device manager? Where is your monitor plugged in

[gordo]

nothing listed in D?Manager, but Monitor is plugged into the card

[Shamus]

no unkown devices or display adapters?

[gordo]

nothing whatsoever.. no yellow !  and no display adapter  thats what is confusing me

[Shamus]

pull the card and reseat it, check for any bulging or popped capacitors of any score marks

[gordo]

yep have pulled and looked over quickly, will have a proper look tomorrow, sure I have another card kicking around here somewhere,  thanks shamus  will pick this up tomorrow when I get sorted

[alahuin]

I had a similar problem after a power cut..Like you I did an XP repair and after booting both the video and sound cards were not found....

After a lot of messing I happened to check which services were running and found that the XP repair had set almost all the services to disabled...oops...After I started all the services except the ones I normaly have disabled, Windows found the video & sound cards (After a reboot) though I had to uninstall previous drivers then install new ones to get them to work....

This may not be your problem but could be worth a look...

 

[bigguy]

Make sure to ground yourself before re-seating or touching the card.

[gordo]

O God what a job this turned out to be,  I reseated the nvida card, even tried right an old 32meg one; went through the service settings and found nothing that looked wrong.  I reinstalled XP with SP2 twice and kept ending up with problems one after the other (yep clean install after  quick and full format) 

It appears to me that the problem centered around this file which was   missing  "viaagp"   I downloaded it and placed in the sys32/drivers   folder and restarted, nothing but a blank black screen. I reinstalled   all the mobo drivers etc twice and still it wouldn't work. 

So I weren't getting anywhere fast, I had a disk of XP with SP3 on which wouldn't work last time I tried it after spending 70 gbpounds on.  After going away to have a smoke and down some much needed coffee, I came back and it seemed to have worked..well so far so good.

Seems to be stable enough at least everything will hold it's settings ... so he says with everythiong thats phyiscally crossed ..crossed and some you aren't meant to cross too.. so with a high voice I' will press on and thanks people really appreciated the support

[alahuin]

My you have been in the wars!
Sounds like you may have finally cracked it though....

 

[butchas]

Time to get an uninterruptible power supply.   They save head aches.