Windows will not complete boot process

16 years ago

Windows XP SP3, 3GB ram, 500 GB HDD, AMD Athlon x64 processor.

For the past couple of weeks, my computer has been very slow to boot, sometimes taking as long as 5 minutes. It gets as far as loading the wallpaper, and then hangs. Today it absolutely refused to go any further. No icons, no task bar, no Start---in other words, I cannot use the computer.

I managed to boot into Safe Mode and attempted system restore to two different earlier dates, but it did not complete the restore. So no luck there.

What can I do short of a reinstall? I do have a backup done as of a couple of months ago, but without being able to boot how can I go about putting this backup in place? I do have a boot disk that I made, but I feel really ignorant about this. Please help.

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Comments (7)

grandms
Original Author
16 years ago
I was finally able to do a restore to a more recent date. This took at least six tries, but the most recent date of a week ago finally "took", and Windows finally loaded completely. I haven't timed the startup as yet to see how long it's taking, but I'm just thankful to be back in business. Just hope whatever was causing it to hang is not put back. At this point I have no idea what the problem was.
owbist
16 years ago
Grandms I recently was made aware of a neat little freebie, Soluto that analyses the start up and reports back on each with suggestions to keep or stop each process. I have had it installed for over 2 weeks with seemingly no ill effects and it gave me pointers on a couple of processes I could stop.
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grandms
Original Author
16 years ago
I have used WinPatrol for a long time, but I'm willing to give something else a try. I have very little in my startup: just AV, firewall, Secunia, and Works Calendar Reminder, so I don't know what the problem was.

Startup still seems slow, especially compared to my Win 7 laptop, LOL!
zep516
16 years ago
I'd go the Hard drive manufactures site and run there diagnostics on the hard drive too.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
16 years ago
that may be one problem you are comparing it to a brand new much faster computer. As they get older they do get slower.

Remember that winpatrol is also protection so I would not get rid of it.

had you by any chance just done all those windows updates? I know that on many forums some are reporting issues with some of the updates mostly the .NET ones.
Possibly your pc did not like one of them.

you could have had some corrupted registry and doing the system restore may have fixed those.

I am sure you have done all of these but they are very good steps to take
Help! My computer is slow!
grandms
Original Author
16 years ago
Just adding some info as a footnote to original post.

I was running a scan with Superantispyware when a message popped up in the notification area that a file was corrupted. It identified the file as one dealing with Epson scanner. It suggested I run an error check, which I then scheduled for next reboot. Chkdist ran and in the indexing section found some problems and made some changes. I have a 500GB HDD with lots of empty space, so finishing takes a long time. Immediately on reboot, it ran the error checking again, and this time noted all was well.

I thought it interesting that a malware detection program would call my attention to a corrupted file and suggest a solution. Perhaps this was at the bottom of my trouble all along. Just thought I'd share this information.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
16 years ago
corrupted files and drivers can cause all kinds of headaches.

Windows will not complete boot process

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Windows will not complete boot process

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