Very slow boot with progress bar
Trying to fix a friend's computer. Was working fine before she "forgot" and switched it off and on in quick succession. Corrupted the boot sector. I used 'Bootfix' and 'Bootcfg' utilities from her windows setup disk to restore the boot sector. Now it boots, but after POST it takes 1.5 min. of black screen, then another 4.5 min. of white-hatched progress bar before it loads Windows. The Boot.ini file matches that of a well-functiong XP machine.Any suggestions (short of format/re-build)?1 person needs an answerI do too
September 22nd, 2010 4:19pm

Trying to fix a friend's computer. Was working fine before she "forgot" and switched it off and on in quick succession. Corrupted the boot sector. I used 'Bootfix' and 'Bootcfg' utilities from her windows setup disk to restore the boot sector. Now it boots, but after POST it takes 1.5 min. of black screen, then another 4.5 min. of white-hatched progress bar before it loads Windows. The Boot.ini file matches that of a well-functiong XP machine.Any suggestions (short of format/re-build)? HELLO, EARL OF ESPERANCE:Have you tried using the MSCONFIG UTILITY to define how Windows starts up and runs? type msconfig at the run command of the start menu, and when it opens up, choose selective start menu., or diagnostic start menu, which only loads basic services, much like safe mode...If this increases your speed to open windows, then you should rre-open msconfig to see which startup items besides the essential microsoft services are being loaded at the same time. which could reduce loading speed and times. I'd suspect, though, that much of the problem would lie in the way windows looks for a disk signature in the boot sectors, as a generic boot code would take longer to verify and load from. In the boot .ini file, where it says "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)"microsoft windows (xp professional) "does it say /optin=all /fastdetect " ? the /fastdetect is the key here wer're looking for. If that is not in the boot.ini, edit it in notepad to add the linr, and save your changes. IF none of this works for you, plese re-post, and we'll see what else we can do... let us know, okay?"THE EASIEST THING TO GET IN THIS WORLD IS A WRONG ANSWER!" "I "DO" WINDOWS...."
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September 23rd, 2010 11:51pm

After such, you should always start with:When you boot on the CD, follow the prompts:Press any key to boot from CD...The Windows Setup... will proceed.Press 'R' to enter the Recovery Console.Select the installation you want to access (usually 1: C:\WINDOWS)You may be asked to enter the Administrator password (usually empty).You should be in the C:\WINDOWS folder. This is the same as the C:\WINDOWS folder you see in explorer.RC allows basic file commands - copy, rename, replace, delete, cd, chkdsk, fixboot, fixmbr, etc.From the command prompt window run the chkdsk command on the drive where Windows is installed to try to repair any problems on the afflicted drive.Running chkdsk is fine to run even if it doesn't find any problems. Assuming your boot drive is C, run the following command:chkdsk C: /rLet chkdsk finish and correct any problems it might find. It may take a long time to complete or appear to be 'stuck'. Be patient. If the HDD light isstill flashing, it is doing something. Keep an eye on the percentage amount to be sure it is still making progress. It may even appear to go backwards sometimes.You should run chkdsk /r again until it finds no errors to correct.Remove the CD and type 'exit' to leave the RC and restart the computer.You do not have to adjust the BIOS again to boot on the HDD since the CD will not be present.To eliminate questions and guessing, please provide additional information about your system.What is your system make and model?What is your XP version and Service Pack?Click Start, Run and in the box enter:msinfo32Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the information back here.There will be some personal information (like System Name and User Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just delete it from the pasted information.Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation: McAfee, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.We will need more information to troubleshoot any remaining issues (or you can try things).Don't guess what the problem might be - figure it out and fix it. I need YOUR votes and points for helpful replies and Propose as Answers. I am saving up for a pony!
September 24th, 2010 4:20am

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