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Windows xp not loading
LION8TIGER
Posts: 8,484 Forum Member
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Have being removing viruses and spware from a 10 year old XP Dell Latitude and unwanted programs it has decided to give a screen on bootup similar to this.
Nothing to click on, have to hard reset ... same in safe mode.
Ideas please ( apart from its XP so throw it away)
Edit: last known good configuration returns the same xp logo in the centre of the screen.
Nothing to click on, have to hard reset ... same in safe mode.
Ideas please ( apart from its XP so throw it away)
Edit: last known good configuration returns the same xp logo in the centre of the screen.
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Comments
Fixing an old, slow, cluttered, malware-ridden machine is time consuming enough as it is. Add in a non-booting problem and it turns into a potentially nightmare task. Even if you get XP to boot, the underlying cause might still be there and it could happen again the next time you shut down. So... if you have the COA and XP disk, go for a clean install instead. Any necessary drivers should be available on the Dell site.
Depending on the user and their requirements, a machine like this might be an ideal candidate for a lightweight Linux distro. If everything the user does is within a browser, it's worth considering. But if they expect you to teach them to use Linux and install a bunch of additional software and hardware, it's not worth the hassle. (This is assuming you're fixing the machine for someone else).
I tried to create an image of the hard drive with Acronis but it failed, possibly due to bad sectors .... even though I had already run chkdsk on it.
I have copied photos etc and am now half way through installing a fresh copy of XP Pro from a disk I have ...... looks to be going ok just a bit worried about any bad sectors on the hard drive ... fingers crossed.
Good luck with that and l hope things work out for you.
I've downloaded SP3 put on a flash drive and its now about half way through installing .... the Dell XP Pro disk I had was SP2.
Edit: SP3 fixed the internet problem.
As a future precautionary measure, what you could consider doing is downloading the SP3 pack http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=25129 and burning it on to a disc with ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/ which saves a shed load of time and downloads if things need to be reinstalled again (hopefully won't ever be required though).
The most disappointing thing about the laptop is it's wireless card which only runs at 11Mbps, I plugged a wireless adapter in which ran at 72Mbps and effectively gave it two and a half times better a result on a speed test.
Anyway glad to be rid of it, long hours spent.