Help. No boot to desktop after displaying splash screen

[wchull]

Help! My system has developed some sort of problem that I don't think is a virus or malware. I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar event and can suggest how I might fix this?

A week ago I turned on my system and it displayed the XP splash screen with the scrolling progress bar but will not boot to the desktop. I can get into the system via safe mode every time. I can restore my system using Acronis Backup Recovery and things may work for days and then repeats and will not boot to the desktop. I've run all sorts of different diagnostics against the harddrive and nothing shows up as a failure or that has occurred or is about to occur. Verbose logging shows nothing. I can set the machine up for interactive logons and nothing happens as it never gets to this point. Last night I restored from backup restarted several times and everything was OK. Deleted all the prefetch files and after restarting she wouldn't move beyond the splash screen. Undeleted the prefetch files and the system boots fine. Today I was updating the system using Windows update and after patching, the system would not move beyond the splash scrreen and the moving progress bar. Note that I've run CHKDSK and special Western Digital diagnostics on the drive and it says the drive is OK. Any idea how I can identify what is going wrong and get this fixed?

 

[BionicJohn]

The screen goes black/blank during displaying the XP splash screen with the scrolling progress bar? A likely suspect is the graphics card and/or driver.

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Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[linney]

I am not a user of Acronis software, but I ask myself is Acronis part of the problem as well as being the cure? Apart from backing up files, partitions, etc. what else is Acronis running on your machine on a day to day basis?

Run the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/5/14.asp

If they don't work you could try repairing windows by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341/en-us

 

[wchull]

SlimJohnD - The screen does not go black. The problem is that the splash screen remains displayed on the screen and the progress bar continues to scroll. From what I can see the drive light is not active when this is taking place.

Linney - As far as I know acronis is not doing anything. Although it is capable of doing incremental backups on a scheduled basis I don't have it setup to do so. Anytime I do a backup it is manually initiated. Note that I only do full system backups of the whole drive.

Note that I have not tried anything else yet. What I'm hoping for is that the behavior of the splash screen remaining in place and the scroller that continues to scroll without HD activity would point to a particular problem.

As of right now I have automatic updates turned off so I have not applied any September patches or updates from Microsoft and so far the restored backup remains stable.

 

[Sympology]

I had a simlar one on a desktop (warm boot issue). Often would hang on splash screen for ages (several minutes).

thread779-1563488


Had to do a BIOS upgrade for it to work with Dual Channel memory, although had been fine for ages.



Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[linney]

From Safe Mode you could make use of the MsConfig tool and then reboot into Normal Mode and test the outcome.

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316434&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560

Also from Safe Mode you could create a New User and test their luck in booting into Normal Mode.