Hello, great forum!

I've had a search but turned up too many threads relating to boot failure so I thought I'd make my own specifically. Here goes;

Turned on my pc last night and after using an audio program, FL Studio 8, the pc froze. I had to use task manager to shutdown as I couldn't stop fl studio manually. This has happened once or twice before but never with the following consequences.

Upon restart windows hangs on load up screen for a while then goes to black screen. Restarted again, no load up screen just blank. Went into bios and SATA hard drive doesn't even show up as a boot option?! I then get the screen giving me the option to start in safe mode which results in a page full of text then freezes, last known good config - results in blank screen, restart windows normally - same blank screen. After checking BIOS again the HDD shows up again but the black screen problem continues.

Tried HDD in another pc, works fine and all data is accessible. Took the system to a mate who put it down to a prob with the graphics card so i bought one for $40 and installed it. Still same problem, pc goes to blank screen after the xp loading screen. Anyone got any ideas?

Specs:

4 years old

P4 3.4GHz

FOXCONN MOTHERBOARD 945P7AA

2Gb legend RAM

WD2500 SATA HARD DRIVE

Dunno if thats enough info, any help is appreciated. I have no idea how the BIOS should be set up so I don't want to mess too much without some advice first.

As a side note the pc has always been used exclusively for audio processing/recording and has never been on the internet other than to download windows updates when first installed.

Thanks!

If I choose the option to boot into safe mode I get a page full of text like this


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\DRIVERS\WMILIB.sys

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\DRIVERS\pci.sys

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\DRIVERS\isapnp.sys

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\DRIVERS\ohci1394.sys


and the list goes on. I don't know if this means anything?

Cheers

When you boot into Safe Mode, when you see this text, these are the drivers that are loading. These are BASIC drivers. Safe Mode is used for troubleshooting problems, such as driver incompatibility, corruption, etc. I experienced the same problem. I found out that my RAM needed replacing. After I did that, it worked fine. Usually is XP fails to boot, it usually means a hardware failure.

Hi gpower and welcome to the forum,
When your pc boots what beeps do you get?
The number of beeps you get will mean something, like a code, and could help the clever ones amongst us diagnose the fault you have

driver_ian

I just get the one beep before the Foxconn splash screen comes up. I then am given the option of booting into safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last known good config, normal. The first 3 options result in a page of drivers text, the last 2 result in a black screen after the windows loading screen.

I will try removing the RAM and replacing.

Ok have tried the following:

Took out sticks of RAM one by one and attempted to reboot - same result

Took out PCI-E Firewire card - same result

Disconnected DVD drive - same result

Installed new 1Gb stick of RAM - same result


Is my motherboard frazzled?

The list of letters and numbers is normal leave it run and see what happens.

What about last known good config?

Do you get a black screen with blinking cursor?

Now you say your hard drive doesnt show at all in the BIOS?

Power her off and check internal connections.

Could you possibly restart and enter BIOS and load defaults does that help?

Does the hard drive now show in BIOS?

Or you can remove BIOS bettery for two minutes replace then reboot does that get you anywere?

Were you changing from onboard graphics to PCI card or have you always used PCI?