Hangups and Boot Problems

[No_Skillz]

Yesterday, while watching a movie and surfing the net at the same time, my computer started having hang-ups which lasted about 5 seconds at a time at 2-3 min intervals. Finally it froze altogether at which point I rebooted.

1. First reboot got me to my desktop where the system froze
2. Second reboot got me to the windows loading screen, where it stayed for a long time and rebooted by itself again
3. Third time I chose to reboot in safe mode. Started running AVG 8.0 scan and spybot, but froze again. Scans were not complete
4. Fourth time never made it to windows load screen, just blank and eventually self rebooted again
5. Fifth time got into windows safe mode again, balloon popped up on taskbar that said "Unknown Hard Error" along with a popup box that said the same thing. At this point I thought hard drive was bad since it would stop whenever there was a hangup.
6. Rebooted a couple more times each time with the system hanging up at different points, including a hangup while loading safemode again.
7. Last reboot everything just went back to normal. I did a system restore point from the day before. Restore gave me the same hangup problems that I experienced at first so I undid the restore.
8. Did a reg clean, disabled some startup services, downloaded some windows updates, ran spybot and AVG both of which were clean.

Everything seemed fine for a while.

Today, things have gone totally downhill. After being on for most of the day with me cleaning up the HD and registry a bit, I decided to do a CHKDSK. CHKDSK started after it asked me to reboot. It eventually got stuck on step 5 out of 5, at 5%. It was there for over an hour. Thunderstorms rolled in and we lost power for a bit.

Now computer does not boot.
With Normal Mode or Last Good Boot Settings, it gets to the windows load screen and restarts itself.
With Safe Mode it loads a bunch of stuff, prompts "Press ESC to cancel SPDV.sys" (or something like that, it's only on the screen for a second) and restarts itself.

I am using XP Home SP2.
Right now that's all the computer does.   Any help is appreciated.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Do you have the Original Windows XP CD?

Also, Do you have another computer handy?

[No_Skillz]

Yes I have my original XP CD.

Yes my alternate is this laptop from which I am posting.  My Desktop doesn't start at all.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

I suggest putting the Windows XP CD in the malfunctioning computer and boot from it.
From there, you can perform a Repair Install. More info here:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

(Don't worry, you will not lose any of your files)

[No_Skillz]

Dudeoxide;

Thanks for the help.  I already tried sticking in the CD but nothing changed.  Do I have to go into bios and change boot order to CD first?  I would have tried it but ever since I "tried to fix" it the first time and everything went to *censored*, I'm afraid to do anything.

Any way to find out exactly what went wrong and fix it?  How do I make sure this doesn't happen again?

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Yeah, you have to change the boot order in the Bios. You should be able to get into the Bios Setup if you keep pressing either F1, F2 or F10, DEL or ESC.
More info here:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000192.htm

How do I make sure this doesn't happen again?

One step at a time, we have to find out what's wrong first.

If after you do the Repair Install and it starts working, it could have been a software problem (recent downloads or installs)
If this doesn't fix it, if could be a hardware problem (recently added hardware or just wear and tear).

[No_Skillz]

I'm stuck at this point:

Repair was NOT one of the options for my main partition so I exited and went into the repair config (as the link you posted directed me to).  I typed in bootcfg and I got:

Use the BOOTCFG command for boot configuration and recovery

BOOTCFG /ADD
BOOTCFG /REBUILD
BOOTCFG /SCAN
BOOTCFG /LIST
BOOTCFG / DISABLEREDIRECT
BOOTCFG / REDIRECT [PORT BAUDRATE] | [useBiosSettings]

Followed by a description of what each command does

C:\> "cd.. *censored* do I do now?  "

The instructions on that page you linked me to says:
1.Boot with XP CD or 6 floppy boot disk set.

 2. Press R to load the Recovery Console. 

 3. Type bootcfg. 

 4. This should fix any boot.ini errors causing setup not to see the  XP OS
      install. 

 5. Try the repair install.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Repair was NOT one of the options for my main partition

What do you mean by this?
You sure you followed this part?

[No_Skillz]

Yep, followed that exactly and got:

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

Use the up/down arrows to select an item.
To set up XP on the selected item, press ENTER.
To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C.
To delete the selected partition, press D.

I could select between (what I assume is) my HD "C: Partition 1 [Unknown]" or "Unpartitioned space 8mb".

The repair option was not available so I went on to the next item on the page, which was Warning 2.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

That's a problem. From what you have told me so far, it appears something has happened with the XP Partition.

I strongly suggest you remove the current HD and plug it into another computer as a Slave.
This way you can either access your files and back everything up or find out if the drive is corrupted or not.

Do you not have access to another desktop at all?

[No_Skillz]

I have an ancient Dell, but I always thought hardware was difficult to mess with on those?  Forsee any problems?

I am a bit concerned by this result too because at what I posted earlier my main HD was: C: Partition 1 [Unknown]  476930MB <476929MB Free>  Does that mean there's nothing in there?

Should I follow this before I try the HD swap?
http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658-0

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

That would be my first guess. If it says C: Unknown, we have to prepare for the worst.

I apologize but I actually have to go for about 30 mins to an hour. If you can, hook the Hard Drive up to another computer as a slave and see if the computer recognizes it.

[No_Skillz]

Not a problem.  Talking to anyone at all more knowledgable than me is better than me hacking away by myself.

I won't have access to the other desktop until tomorrow, possibly later this week, but I will try that link that I posted and see what happens.  It looks like the tutorial basically makes backups of core system files and replaces them with fresh ones from the CD, so I hope it won't mess with any of my other files on the HD (if they're still there).

[No_Skillz]

Well, was following the directions (on http://webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658-1).  Went into Recovery Console and typed in md c:\windows\tmp just like it told me to and got "Access is denied."

Even tried (from your link):
c:\>copy K:\i386\ntldr C:\
At the recovery console and got Blue Screened (A prob been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage...)

I'm starting to suspect that I'm not supposed to get a "C:\>" at the recovery console...  besides, none of the dos commands I know work (not that many).  "dir" gives "An error occurred during directory enumeration." "cd \windows" gives "The path or file specified is not valid."  I'm starting to lose hope.

I also ran a chkdsk which told me that I have approx 10/500gig free (which is correct), with one or more errors on the volume.  Don't know what to do from here.

I'm out of ideas at this point.  I guess I'll wait for further advice while making plans for getting access to another desktop tomorrow.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Yeah, I think there is something wrong with the partition itself.

We'll know when you hook it up.

I do have another option you may want to try out if you have time.
If you want, I can give you a link to a Portable Linux which you install onto a Flash Drive.
Once installed, you can plug the Flash Drive into the broken computer and boot off it.
This way you can see if you can access C:\ Drive or not.