Where do I start. I hope you guys like challenge ok here goes.

My lads PC won't boot up. It gets as far as the screen that says "the computer did not shut down correctly last time it was used" (or something similar). and whichever option I choose it just keeps restarting (after the "Windows" screen with the horizontal blue loading bar).

If I select "Safe Mode" it gets as far as "mup.sys" and then hangs.

If I select the option to "Disable automatic restart" then it gets to a BSOD that says the computer was stopped because of a "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" and gives an 0x00000050 error.

What's worse is that I can't get the PC to boot from a Floppy or a CD either. The floppy drive could be faulty as it hasn't been used for ages but the CD drive should be ok (I have tried to boot 2 different XP discs and 2 different Linux live discs)

I did a bit of googling and found some suggestions pointing to memory faults. so I exchanged first the memory and then the graphics card but it still happens.

I suppose it could be the L2 memory on the cpu or a faulty memory controller on the MB but other than that I am at a loss.

The system was working ok up till last night when it was swiched off but wouldn't start this morning.

System:

AMD 2400
Abit AT7 MAX2
512mb mem.
Nvidia Ti4400
Windows XP Pro.

ne1 got any ideas.

Hey Questor,

This one sounds like it's going to be fun.

You sound like you know your way around a PC. I'm guessing that you are dealing with some nasty malware as opposed to a hardware problem. However, unless we can get it to boot up, it doesn't matter it's a paper weight.

Do you by any chance have another HDD that you could use to test? Also, in BIOS are the CD and Floppy drives being detected? What is the boot order set to? If it isn't currently, set your CD to boot up first.

Looking forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

Thx for the quick response.

I am pretty sure that the PC is free from virus' and spyware etc. and it is all patched and up to date. It is part of a network of 3 computers behind a router and has a software firewall and NOD32 AV installed.

The floppy and CDRom are being detected and the boot sequence was Floppy/IDE0/CDROM but I switched all 3 to CDROM to try and force it to boot from there.

I do have spare hard drives and I will try switching them but If I can't boot from a cd then like you say it's paper weight.

Like I said earlier I think that it is either ther CPU or the MB. but I have not come across a faulty CPU or MB that allows you to boot so far as the "Windows" screen. When they go they are usually dead. Do you think that sounds likely? I will have to see if I can find a CPU to switch.

Hey Questor,

No worries, that's what we're here for, and besides, Hengis beats us if we don't answer quickly, LOL.

Sorry, but even with a router, and firewall, you can still get infected, these days, it doesn't take much, just clicking on the wrong thing, or visiting the wrong place. All of your symptoms point to malware infection. Which is why I am suggesting traiding out the HDD. That will at least let you know if it is the OS causing the innability to boot from the CD.

I've never heard of a CPU or Mobo going out and then letting you start to boot from Windows. However, just to be sure, I am going to send a PM out to the Hardware Gurus and get their take on this.

Hopefully we have one or two online and they can chime it.

Looking forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

Hi Questor,

Welcome to PCHF.

I don't believe a faulty motherboard or CPU would let you get this far, and stop at the same point each time, the effects (such as overheating), tend to be much more random.

Memory is a possibility, however each time I have seen this particular problem, it's has always been software related, malware, or a particular peice of software or driver which has been installed or removed. The next driver after mup.sys is typically agp440.sys. You will need to boot from your Windows XP setup CD, and enter the recovery console. Are you able to do this?

ok. Tomorrow I will disconnect all the drives and try and boot from a cd. I will try two different cd/dvd drives in case one is faulty.

I forgot to mention that there are 4 hd's connected to an onboard raid controller - the boot drive is a SATA on disk 1 of the raid. The cd and dvdr drives are independant on IDE0 & IDE1)

It will be tomorrow evening. cos some of us have to go to work

Thx again

PS. MS Defender & Spywareguard are running all the time and Spybot & Lavasoft Adaware are run once a week.

I'll lay you 3 banana daquiri's to 1 it's bad ram. I've seen this enough times (twice on out of the box Dells), and each time some ram had gone sideways to the great Database in the Sky.

This is not to say it's a bad hunk of software. I totally agree with madmonkey that you need to boot into recovery console; once there (if you can get there) you need to run chkdsk /r to find and replace any errors. But first follow madmonkeys instructions, as he is King Monkey on Blue Screen Mountain around here.

thanks,

v