Winxp Going Fubar

I have WINXP laptop and lately about every third day it fails to start. "Loading Windows XP" is all I can see and you can never get in. I tried through safe mode, or last known good configuration, but yet it just hangs on the boot up screen. And about after several hours i can go to safe mode and then i do a system restore and 9 out of 10 times it works. It is hell annoying and I am a little concerned even shutting down it, not knowing whether it will start up again. All my data is on an external hard drive (160 gb).
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.

Any help would be appreciated.

I.am

its prolly time for a formatt and clean install

That is one of the options but I am not considering that right now. Has anyone encountered the same thing or can speculate for the reasons and possible solutions to this?

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Originally posted by I.am+30 October 2003 - 01:30--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (I.am &#064; 30 October 2003 - 01:30)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>That is one of the options but I am not considering that right now. Has anyone encountered the same thing or can speculate for the reasons and possible solutions to this?[/b]

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You said previously:

<!--QuoteBegin-I.am@29 October 2003 - 23:38
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.[/quote]

What do you mean, it "didn&#39;t really" find any errors? Either there were or weren&#39;t errors.

Check your RAM using Memtest. Let it run overnight and replace it if there&#39;s any errors.
Check the hard drive for errors using WinXP&#39;s Checkdisk utility, making sure there&#39;s a tick (checkmark) in both boxes.

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Originally posted by Smurfette+29 October 2003 - 20:41--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Smurfette @ 29 October 2003 - 20:41)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

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Originally posted by I.am@29 October 2003 - 23:38
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.

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What do you mean, it "didn&#39;t really" find any errors? Either there were or weren&#39;t errors.
[/b]

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I was expecting some errors and it didnt find errors. Its just an expression for God&#39;s sake.

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Check the hard drive for errors using WinXP&#39;s Checkdisk utility, making sure there&#39;s a tick (checkmark) in both boxes.

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Have you read what I wrote:
<!--QuoteBegin-I.am@29 October 2003 - 23:38
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.[/quote]

I have done scan disk/ check disk with obviously a check in both the boxes.


I will try the Memtest you mentioned tonight. (How can this be related could you give some insight?)

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Originally posted by I.am+30 October 2003 - 01:52--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (I.am &#064; 30 October 2003 - 01:52)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

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Originally posted by Smurfette@29 October 2003 - 20:41

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Originally posted by I.am@29 October 2003 - 23:38
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.

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What do you mean, it "didn&#39;t really" find any errors? Either there were or weren&#39;t errors.

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I was expecting some errors and it didnt find errors. Its just an expression for God&#39;s sake.

Quote:

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Check the hard drive for errors using WinXP&#39;s Checkdisk utility, making sure there&#39;s a tick (checkmark) in both boxes.

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Have you read what I wrote:
<!--QuoteBegin-I.am@29 October 2003 - 23:38
I did scan disk etc. didnt really find any errors.

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I have done scan disk/ check disk with obviously a check in both the boxes.


I will try the Memtest you mentioned tonight. (How can this be related could you give some insight?)[/b][/quote]

Hey, gimme a break&#33; :) No-one can help with a line like that - you might&#39;ve meant that it only found a corrupt user.bin file or even that you only lost a gig of pr0n LOL.

When you load Windows, the registry is loaded into memory and when you quit Windows writes it back to disk; if you&#39;ve got a bad stick then what gets written back is corrupt.
I&#39;ve had this myself with 2 separate sticks (on 2 different mobos and 3 different HDDs as well) - random corruption of the registry that sometimes manifested itself as registry errors on bootup, sometimes just hanging on boot and sometimes resetting half way through the boot.
That&#39;s not to say it&#39;s your problem but it&#39;s something to throw in the mix.

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Originally posted by Smurfette@29 October 2003 - 21:03

When you load Windows, the registry is loaded into memory and when you quit Windows writes it back to disk; if you&#39;ve got a bad stick then what gets written back is corrupt.
I&#39;ve had this myself with 2 separate sticks (on 2 different mobos and 3 different HDDs as well) - random corruption of the registry that sometimes manifested itself as registry errors on bootup, sometimes just hanging on boot and sometimes resetting half way through the boot.
That&#39;s not to say it&#39;s your problem but it&#39;s something to throw in the mix.

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Better&#33; http://www.mcbriens.net/liam/img/smilies/tongue.gif I prefer actual answers than people confronting me for unnecessary stuff. :)

Anyhow, I will do a Memtest, although it doesnt seem to be the case in mine, but I am not losing anything trying that so I will.

Cheers&#33;
I.am :beerchug:

Having re-read my original post, it does seem a little confrontational, which was not my intent. The trouble with written words is not being able to hear the tone as one would in a voice.

I didn&#39;t say why as you said there weren&#39;t errors, but running checkdisk with those settings is like the old scandisk &#39;thorough&#39; setting, which would enable you to mark bad sectors as such and perform a repair-install (not that bloody useless recovery console thing) to salvage what you could before changing the HDD.

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Originally posted by Smurfette@29 October 2003 - 22:32
Having re-read my original post, it does seem a little confrontational, which was not my intent. The trouble with written words is not being able to hear the tone as one would in a voice.

I didn&#39;t say why as you said there weren&#39;t errors, but running checkdisk with those settings is like the old scandisk &#39;thorough&#39; setting, which would enable you to mark bad sectors as such and perform a repair-install (not that bloody useless recovery console thing) to salvage what you could before changing the HDD.

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:) So it is.

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Thats what I meant. I did the scandisk = checkdisk, with thorough setting already. My last option was system restore which i dont usually prefer but does come in handy at times like this. I dont think there are bad sectors in the HDD. It has to be something else. I might just do a reinstall to see if that helps. Otherwise last resort would be to format my hdd which I havent done since i bought the laptop(2 yrs - i know :rolleyes: )

It didn&#39;t work. Anyone else has any suggestions/ insight into this?
*bump*