xp pro bootup fails to load fully

[racerbrownn]

i have a gateway mfatxpnt esx e4000 about 4 years old with xp pro.
suddently it can't boot fully. restarts while showing the xp screen.
tried safe mode and it loads up to the agp driver and stalls, then restarts over and over again. i can get into the bios and look around and it is stable then.
do i have a video hdwe or software problem??
i probably have the restore disc around but that will probably wipe all the changes since new.
i also have a xp pro oem install disc. should i try to do a repair off of the oem disc??
thankx, ray.

[flanzig1]

What you could try is to uninstall the video drivers and then reinstal the video divers. If the video is on-board, download then from Gateway. If a card, go to the maker of the card and download drivers.

[GaryRouth]

Hi racerbrownn

It's a tough go when you can't get into Safe Mode. If you could get into Safe Mode long enough, you could try a few things.

I'm guessing the restart is happening because the system is set to "Automatically restart" [in My Computer/System Properties/Advanced/"Startup and Recovery"/Settings/"System Failure"/"Automatically restart"]

A possibility is a malware infection. To rule out an infection, you could take the hard drive out & scan it from another computer [using either an external USB 2.0 housing, or slaving it inside the host's box].

Might as well try running what diagnostics you can. MemTest86 for the memory (http://www.memtest.org) and the hard disk manufacturer's diagnostics (might be a Western Digital in there, that'd be the DataLifeGuard tools- you might have to just look inside if the Bios display doesn't give the brand). If the system runs stable when booting from the diagnostics disks, at least you'll know your basic hardware is OK.

While you're in the Bios Setup - take a peek at the time and date: if these are way off, the CMOS battery might need replacing ($1.50 [USD]).

It probably shouldn't be a video driver problem, since Safe Mode only uses Standard VGA, and things went south even when you tried Safe Mode.

If you want to see what options you have in the Recovery Console [you could try restoring a previous Registry, for example], check out Microsoft's Recovery Console article http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058

If the Recovery Console isn't any help, the hard disk scans clean, and the hardware tests out OK, you could try an inplace reinstall of XP Pro, but you'd definitely want to follow the links to the in-depth articles about that procedure (the 2nd post in the XP reinstall thread "Further Notes"), so that you'd take all the necessary precautions http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=151522
Here's the top reference link from Michael Steven's site (that I reference in that thread) http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Good luck with your repair
. . . Gary

PS - nice to see you here at the forums - it's been a while since the last Win9x forum visit, huh? (where dinosaurs like Gary roam)