Wolverines

Ok, so I am having a bit of a computer problem at the moment.

I am trying to start my computer (windows xp).  when I start up, it tells me it had a problem shutting down and asks if I want to do the whole safe mode thing.  No matter which option I pick, it will act like its about to start windows, but when the windows initial loading bar is done, for a split second a blue screen with command lines shows up and it restarts my computer, doing the whole process over again.  Anyone know what the problem might be?

Let me know if you need more information. 

you might want to run windows repair

I had this happen to my computer.. I ended up reinstalling everything from windows up plus i lost everything.  now i didnt know alot about computers and this was the cheaps fix for me

As soon as you get to the screen that says "Press DEL to enter setup" or something like that, hammer on F8 until you get the full safe mode menu.  Select "Disable restart on system failure" and hit enter.  Now it should freeze on the blue screen so you can get better details on what it says.  Copy as much of the bluescreen as you can stomach here and maybe someone here can interpret it.

Yep, its a stop error.  If you are lucky, it will tell you which file is involved in the error.  It should give a number too.  ie. STOP: 0x0000008a or something like that.

My 2 cents, when in doubt before you try reinstalling boot from your XP cd and start the crecovery console.  From there run chkdsk /r   It's computer vodo, I don't know how many times I've saved instalatons of 2003 on the servers at work with it.  

  

I suspect it's a driver problem; did you update any video drivers?

I have not made any driver updates for about a couple months now.

Here is the stop error when I did the F8 thing.  0x00000024.  If all of the numbers in the parenthesis following this number is needed I can post those too.

Does it say ntfs.sys under that message?  If it does, boot into the recovery console like Thrun said.  Then run chkdsk /r.  That might fix it.  If that doesn't work, you can try an ASR from the windows setup.  If that doesn't work, you can try an inplace upgrade.  Microsoft Technet should be able to help you with instructions if you need em.

is this the error?  

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B228888

I think so. though I can't exactly remember if it said ntfs at the bottom or not.  I'll have to try running the recovery disc tonight.. the fun part will be trying to find it!  I'm sure between all the people I know I can find one..

Oh no!  If that's the message, the only fix is to suspend your computer in a giant bath tub jello mold. 

Hmmm..... and you know this how JT?

worse come to worse, just grab the harddrive, put it in someone else's desktop (or run a Linux Live CD), and backup your important files, and FFR. That usually fixes it

hawks do you really want him to answer, it is JT after all, you may not want to know

That would be worse case scenario of course :).  But I would be able to easily do that if I needed to.

All the IT guys here, and nobody asked if you tried last known good config yet?

If you have another vid card laying around you could try swapping it in.

Also, if you have any kind of legacy ATA mode option in your bios, give that a whirl as well.

If you're not even booting safe mode after that...you're fucked.  Copy off your data and reinstall.

I had tried all the login options.  Safe Mode, Safe Mode with prompt, last known good config, just the tip, all the options it would give me.

The chkdsk /r thing worked like a charm, thanks for the help everyone :)

just glad to see that you got it fixed