XP pro boot problems

[caverspencer]

Ill give the short and long story.

Here is the short story.

I have a computer that wont boot and wont run windows setup. It hangs when either of them try to start. The operating system is Windows XP pro.

I have tried various settings in the setup but currently it is set to the "fail safe" options.

Now the long story:

The computer is a super micro motherboard dual processor Pentium 3 with 4 gigs of RAM. It has 2 40 Gig hard drives in. A CD Rom, a CD read write drive, and a floppy drive. Cards on the machine include a video card and a sound card. Everything else is on the motherboard.

When I shut down the computer last it hung on a blue screen with the flashing - (dash) for a few seconds then shut off. It certainly wasn't the normal shut down.

Now it wont boot. It hangs I believe when it tries to start windows. I get the same dark blue screen with the flashing dash. If I boot from the windows XP CD i get the "press any key to boot from CD" message so I press that and is says windows is checking hardware configuration and just hangs on that screen forever.

Let me just restate the problem again.

1- I boot without a CD it goes through the memory test and hangs right when windows would normally start.

2- If I boot from CD it hangs on the hardware configuration page.


Now the kicker... The computer has had some recent changes. The old 20 gig C: hardrive was copied using ACRONIS to the new 40 Gig drive, and the motherboard was replaced at the same time. In that process we had to repair the windows installation and then install service pack 2 we then copied the pictures and files I was story on the 20 Gig D: drive to C: and tried to install another 40 Gig drive. That was never completed and the computer has been running with the just the single 40 Gig C: for a couple of weeks. Everything seemed stable enough.

The reason I shut down the computer last night was to install the second drive. But when I saw it didn't shut down normally adding the second drive was out of the question. For now I would just like to get the thing to boot again. I will deal with the second drive later.

[Monty007]

Hi caverspencer, when you replaced the motherboard did you update the chipset drivers? Can you boot in safe mode? Have you tried a memory test if not go to this link http://www.memtest86.com/
after you have downloaded it go to the technical page as it has all you need to know on how to use it.