OT: WINXP died..

(etc...)

Find a bootable CD, shove it into the cdrom drive, and see if it will boot from something other than the hard disk. Any Linux LiveCD or memory test CD (memtest86 or memtest86+) should be good enough. If it works, then it's time to "fix" your XP installation. Save the complicated boot logging for later. Usually, it's something obscure, like the wrong date and time.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

boot safe mode with step-by-step confirmation

mash f8 and f5 during boot up, one of then activates a menu

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?? 100% natural

On a sunny day (Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:19:15 -0800) it happened Robert Baer wrote in :

Had not heard that word 'autoexec.bat' in at least 10 years. I burned my xp disk, everything runs Linux. OTOH I started win 98 on an old PC few days ago, as it had the Epson DVD layout program, copied it to this PC, and run it in wine (windows emulator). gimp cups has the drivers...

You can test your hardware by putting in some Linux live CD.

What Jeff said. Also, don't overlook the power supply. Or a good air pressure cleaning of any accumulated dust, dirt and grime in the cabinet. Many a problem have been fixed via these simple steps.

Just for grins, what happens if you unplug the HD and then start the PC without it. Do you get any messages on the screen? Any beeping?

- mpm

Try starting it in 'safe mode' by hitting (IIRC) F8 during the startup process. I never know when to hit F8 so I just keep hitting F8 until it says it is starting in safe mode. Maybe the resolution got mixed up.

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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply 
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"Safe Mode" is available for XP?? Surprise as (so far) only Win2K and Win7 indicate that option. Will try. Thanks.

cabinet. Many a problem have been fixed via these simple steps.

without it. Do you get any messages on the screen? Any beeping?

The computer works in DOS with many programs with zero hassles. And XP worked for a few days; this problem happened AFTER "activation". BTW, only the CRT and keyboard are dead, the HD works furiously foe a while, rests, works some, rests, a bit more, rests, etc.

Ummm... how much RAM do you have in this unspecified machine?

The original 13 year old release of XP would work fairly well with

512KBytes of RAM. Up through service pack 2, 1MByte was a tolerable minimum. These daze, with all the junk that accumulates and wants to run, in the background, I find 1.5GB to be the minimum. For 32bit XP, I cram in 4GB if possible, even though XP can officially only use 3.5GBytes of that. If your HD is bashing away merrily, it's either downloading updates, or swapping furiously due to lack of RAM,

Also, if you just activated the machine, you probably haven't installed all the updates. My guess(tm) is about 4 hours and almost

1GByte of updates in order to be current. If you've been touring the internet without virus protection on a machine that hasn't been updated, my guess is you may also have a virus by now, especially if you're directly connected to the internet without a router or firewall. If this turns out to be the case, since you haven't put much time into this yet, perhaps backup your user files, wipe the drive, and start over might be a better approach. Don't worry... as long as you SID (system ID) remains the same, XP will activate correctly.

Perhaps a description of what you have to work with might be helpful.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Why don't you look on the MickeySoft website for advice on how to deal with a recalcitrant XP system not booting? You can usually boot from a Win XP CD and then do a system repair in most cases as a lazy option.

Be a little careful though one of the "helpful" options that is only a click away will reformat everything and destroy all your data. ISTR it does warn the user first but it doesn't stop people from doing it!

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

XP will run OK in 1GB and so will Win7. Both a bit slowly but OK.

Anything less and they will thrash like hell and it shows by icons going black and screen refreshed taking forever.

If it was an unpatched Win XP new install attached to the internet it is probably hopelessly compromised by now and a part of some botnet.

The other possibility is that MS recognised the XP signature as a fake clone copy and has disabled it immediately after "activation".

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

NT uses CMD not command + Bat fil.

Try safe mode...

Jamie

Look behind the keyboard, There is probably a nut loose.

Cheers

Nahhjh. They wouldn't do that, would they?

Jamie

:) Jamie

Don't you mean "in front" of the keyboard ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson

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I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

BUT..it _does_ boot...just ain't complete. System "repair" is very lame to say the least..limited console commands with no clues as what to do, OR "automatic" repair which eXplicitly states it will WIPE the drive ans start from scratch; oh,,,VERY useful if one had a lot of needed data.....

NOT a fake clone copy; this is an original M$ disk with all of the stickers (one for the computer, one for the OS,one for the key).

In that case user incompetence *is* the simplest explanation.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

Whoops! Are we talking about MS-DOS? :)