BleepingComputer.com: Cannot start my windows XP..

Nawtheasta,

Your welcome. My problem was caused by downloading SP3 on my XP Machine. It was my own fault. If I had read the precautions to take prior to doing the download, things would have most likely gone easy. I compounded the problem after the fact by trying to install Vista over the top.

Anyway, I seached the net and came up with a few answers, one of which I posted here. It worked great for me. I had a lot of data that was not backed up that I didn't want to lose.

trill i read ur thing. but the thing is my thing doesnt go to the setup page. it goes straight to the blue screen even when bootin from cd

Yes, a manual system restore - if not done correctly - will delete your data.

i'm really considering to just reset everything. this means i will have to reinstall all my programs and delete most of my research that i've already done :|

Andrew Choe, on Oct 15 2009, 08:39 PM, said:

Do NOT wipe your hard drive at this point. I understand you're in a panic, but take a breath and let us try to help you a little more first.

Now, from what you stated at the beginning, there could be two problems (correct me if I'm wrong here):

One - you are running out of disk space and XP can not boot up properly, or
Two - you installed something and possibly removed it, leaving behind a driver file that starts each time you turn on your computer and it has no program to control.

Either one of these situations can be resolved without wiping your hard drive.

Give me a minute and I'll get back with something we can try.

Data files (not installed programs) can be moved...to another system, another drive, another type of media...anytime...by just removing the hard drive and making it a secondary connection to another system.

You can then restore using the disks provided by Dell, following their instructions for doing such...and then reinstall your programs and data files.

And start making routine backups to some media.

When things go wrong once...it's not "once in a lifetime" that something similar will occur.

Louis

When you attempt to boot your computer and the blue screen comes up, it will give you a STOP code (this is a code which tells a person troubleshooting the problem what the major fault is) but the key to finding out what to do is in the message string following the STOP codes in parentheses.

For example:

STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x804E518E, 0xFC938104, 0xFC937E04) are NOT the keys you need to look for because there are multiple reasons to get a 0x0000007E code.

This is the real key to solving your problem:

SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Using this as a guide, what is the message string you see when you get the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) trying to start your machine.

there is no message like that.

See post #26, please.

Louis

? thats my post.

Post #26 is not what I am looking for...I am looking for a specific STOP message which targets a specific cause for the error. Post 26 simply refers to memory addresses which were accessed at the time of the crash.

PCI.sys controls the PCI Express slots on a motherboard and makes PCI devices (such as graphics adapters) use onboard memory before accessing computer memory.

If you have any PCI Express devices in your system, try going into your BIOS and disable PCI Express support.

Andrew, I think maybe to many of us are trying to provide help to you and that confuses you more. Perhaps you should work with syscorpsecure and see if he/she can assist you. At this point I don't know if you have loaded the recovery console or not, among a number of other things. So, I suggest you work with syscorpsecure for a bit to see if the problem can be resolved. If that fails, then syscorpsecure can guide you through the process I outlined. I don't believe you understood what needed to be done. So, I'll back out for the time being, but if you need my help, send a private message and I'll get in touch.

This post has been edited by Trillogy: 15 October 2009 - 10:28 PM

Trilogy:

You make a good point and I just wanted to say that I respect everyone who has tried to help so far. All of the help offered has been valid and gives very good information as to what could possibly be wrong in this case. I do not want to offend anyone or push anyone aside as not being able to figure this problem out, I just like to take the approach of not doing a destructive fix (such as completely wiping a hard drive and starting from scratch) unless absolutely necessary. I've seen way too many instances where a solution requiring non-destructive methods could have saved the day.

The information I've been able to gather points to one very possible suspect which I would like to share with everyone:

• In order for any PCI Express based technology to run properly under Windows XP, you must have Service Pack 2 or higher installed.
  
• If the user has a PCI Express device installed and reinstalls or rolls back to the original version of Windows XP or Service Pack 1 , the user will experience multiple "0x0000007e" STOP errors with different memory addresses involved.

Again, I think any of the members who have offered advice so far are quite capable of helping Andrew so if as a group we can zero in on what might fix his computer, I have no problem with anyone sharing ideas on what they know could be a solution. I really like the idea that members come to this forum with one thing in mind - helping others.

If the issue is the PCI-E thing, and the way syscorpsecure is saying it, it seems like it is. Then I would agree turn the PCI-E settings off in the BIOS. OTherwise if that's to difficult for you, or you can't find the setting, or there is no setting, you could just pop open the case and take out all the PCI-E devices. My guess is that you have a PCI-E video card. so you'll probably have to hook your monitor up to on-board video. If you don't know which slots are PCI-E then take a look at this pic.



From top to bottom:
PCI-E x16
PCI-E x4
PCI-E x1
PCI

If you need to take out things from the PCI-E slots then do that, but you can leave things in the PCI slots.

Now I think we're on to something here...

After reviewing the specs for your machine, I have two quick questions:

• On the Dell website, it says that your machine ships with Microsoft Windows Vista loaded but you indicate that your machine is running Windows XP. Did something happen and you installed XP instead or are you running Windows Vista and you just mistook it for XP. Or did it ship with a version of Windows XP installed? This is important because the solutions depend on which version of Windows you are running.
  
• Do you have the original operating system CD that shipped with your computer or are you using a copy you or someone else burned? Don't worry about answering this question because none of those helping you should be cops for Microsoft...

The idea that this error is related to PCI express devices is gaining traction due to the following specs for your machine:

256MB PCI ExpressTM NVIDIA® GeForceTM 7300LE TurboCache
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS

These are all PCI-Express video cards

Externally Accessible
Video: 1 DVI, VGA and 1 S-Video (with add-in PCI-Express video card)

Expansion Slots
PCI: 3 Slots
PCIe x1: 1 Slot
PCIe x16 (Graphics): 1 Slots
PCIe x4/x8: 1 Slot


As to how to get your computer to boot from the CD drive to repair your computer without accessing the BIOS, use these instructions copied from your user manual (Page 133) to boot from your operating system CD:

Changing Boot Sequence for the Current Boot

You can use this feature, for example, to restart your computer to a USB device such as a floppy drive,
memory key, or CD-RW drive.

1 Turn on (or restart) your computer.

2 When F2 = Setup, F12 = Boot Menu appears in the upper-right corner of the screen,
press <F12>.
If you wait too long and the operating system logo appears, continue to wait until you see the
Microsoft Windows desktop, then shut down your computer (see "Turning Off Your Computer" on
page 77) and try again.
The Boot Device Menu appears, listing all available boot devices. Each device has a number next to it.

3 At the bottom of the menu, enter the number of the device that is to be used for the current boot only.
For example, if you are booting to your CD drive and it is listed as option #4 then press the number 4 on your keyboard and press <Enter>.

If you are using Windows XP, you can do what is called an "inplace upgrade" which means you can replace all of the system files in the C:\Windows directory and NOT lose any of your data.

If you can follow the instructions above, test starting your computer from the CD drive and when it boots, DO NOT do anything until you post back and tell me if you can get your system booted from the CD. If you are asked to do a system restore or install XP, simply press the correct key to exit the installation process.