Freezes at "windows XP" screen
My computer froze, and was not responding, so I pushed the power button and when it restarted, it got stuck on the black screen with the windows xp logo on it and the blue scrolling thing, which continues to scroll. This happened a few weeks ago, and dell sent me a windso recovery cd and I put it in and started it and it reinstalled windows, and then I just had to reinstall most of the programs. Last night I was using firefox, just checking my yahoo mail, when it froze, and is now stuck again. I tried the CD, but it isn't working. the screens cycle through, from the windows logo, to a screen with different shades of blue on it with the windows logo and a "please wait" to a black screen with white writing saying something about dumping memory to a disk or something. Can you help me out at all? I've been using McAfee virus scan (and firewall), which is up to date and just scanned the day before with no results, and I use Adaware on a weekly basis.
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You have a problem that could be a number of things, but first- tell us about your computer. Is it a laptop or a desktop? Do you have the model number?
Apparently your machine is configured to do a system dump after a critical error. Sometimes this can take quite a few minutes to complete- especially if it is doing a complete system dump.
Can you get into Safe Mode (press F8 a few times a little before windows begins to boot- this may take a few tries)? If you can, you can modify or shut off this feature-
Click Start|Settings|Control Panel|System
Click on the Advanced tab then Settings under Startup and Recovery.
Under System Failure:
- UNCHECK the box that says Automatically restart.
- I also generally have the Write an Event to the system log checked and Small memory dump (64KB) selected. This should allow you to proceed further on your next boot. If it doesn't, simply uncheck the Write an Event to the system log the next time.
Click OK (twice) and close the Control Panel.
Reboot.
What this may do is allow your PC to boot and operate to a point where you may generate a blue screen (of death aka BSOD) event that should have a STOP ERROR code on it. If one is generated, please post the code and message back here so we might proceed from there.
Thanks- we hope to get this figured out.
Cassie, if you have anything that is really important on that drive that you really want, we might be able to help you recover it. Have you shipped that drive back to Dell?
Rather than making this more complicated than it is- it sounds like your machine is still under warranty. If that is the case, you have this
Data Recovery Option with Dell.
Without risking voiding the warranty, you may try to recover your valuable data this way. I just wanted you to understand that you can recover anything valuable by this method and the Dell representative should have told you about this option.
If you need to, contact them right away with your RMA or Ticket number and get that process started.
Hope that helps and we really hope your machine gets going again!
The link you gave me for data recovery actually says that it's NOT covered by Dell's service agreement, and I have a back up of most of my stuff from a month ago, so it's not really worth tons of money to recover it, but if there is something I could do that is fairly easy, that would be great.
Here's where my computer is at now: I did a repair reinstall but it keeps restarting, never making it to the desktop. They had me run a PSA and this is what I got: Start DST Short Test: results-fail, error code 1000-0146.
I can't successfully start it in either safemode or normal, it just keeps rebooting.
That is correct. However, it is the ONLY policy Dell has to perform a data recovery and NOT void your warranty. Especially if they have your drive.
This I didn't realize before. And it looks like the right track is to RMA your drive, e.g.-
DST failure code 1000-0146 discussion
Unless others here have a better idea (and there are some excellent people in this regard who may well know something I don't), I have nothing to suggest to try and recover from a faulty drive.
But it does give me a chance to preach. Since I do not know a lot about your system, know that I'm just saying what I'm thinking.
Buying a computer without a large second drive and a back-up plan is like buying a ticket to get aboard the Titanic. You may sink and not have a lifeboat. Adding a hard drive (and a DVD-RW if you don't have one) to your system should not revoke most warranties- (check with Dell) and an external USB drive violates NONE. XP takes to them like a duck to water and it gives you a place to at least drag and drop your valuable data files on a regular basis- which is better than nothing and costs you nothing extra to do. At the cost of these components these days- well, it certainly does not have to be an expensive solution.
Software like Acronis True Image is a VERY powerful back-up tool, but takes a bit more getting used to. But it has the ability to do a complete drive backup and recovery. It can be scheduled to automatically run incremental backups daily, etc, etc. It costs a little to buy, more to learn, but because it actually saved my @$$ the other day, I thought it was well worth it .
Cassie, I say this only for your benefit and nothing more. I truly hope you have your system up and running like a champ soon. I also hope that you will feel free to come back if you still have issues with it or something else.
No matter what, I hope somehow this has helped.
unfortunantly, it was only school work that was on it, which means it was important, but not important enough to pay a lot for.
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I prefer suggesting these because they do not run from your system USB power. Others may drop by their ideas too.
Hope that helps!
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