endless boot loop

My AOA Windows XP gagged on some updates and now it's stuck in the endless boot loop routine. When turned on it goes to the black Empowering People Screen, followed by a blue chkdsk screen which then moves the windows xp loading screen that in a few seconds turns into one of those blue screen of death things that goes by so fast that there's no way on earth to be able to read it. I've tried to alt+F10 thing but that didn't work. I've tried reflashing the BIOS but that changed nothing. I've read of few of the other threads that had to do with something like this but haven't found anything that works. Surely, this isn't unique. Someone somewhere must have addressed this in a positive way. I'll try just about anything. The AOA doesn't function properly now so I don't have much to loose by giving something a shot.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

While the computer is booting, tap F8 repeatedly until a black and white menu pops up. Choose "Disable automatic restart on System Failure" and continue. When the BSOD comes up it'll stay there. Write the code (loos like 0x000000000) and share it here.

 

O, man, thanks so much for the response.

The BSOD has at the bottom the technical information:

*** STOP: 0x00000073 (0x00000001,0xC000017D,)x00000001,0xAA7B7BB8)

In the text above this technical info it suggests starting in safe mode to make changes, if necessary. That doesn't work. After a listing of files it returns to the loop.

Anything you can suggest will most greatfully appreciated.

 

Ok what you typically do next in this situation, is once you have a BSOD code, you can google it. I googled it but searched only the microsoft site. Turns out the only information on this BSOD code is available on the Japanese site. Google can translate it for you. Here's the link:
http://translate.google.com.au/tran...ft with the option of doing a factory restore.

 

I can't thank you enough for your response.

I'm a tad uncomfortable removing the drive and while I'm not opposed to the factory restore, I'm not sure I have the resources. Let me explain.

I got the machine off of ebay so I'm not the original owner. When it came it was pretty full so your observation about reaching capacity is probably right. I took off some things but, obviously, not enough. I've tried the alt + f10 trick but that didn't work. No disks came with the machine. But, I have a pair of disks which I think came with another Acer Aspire One but they look identical in terms of the info on their labels. When I put them into a small external CD drive I get a notice that they aren't readable. Could it be that they are DVDs? It seems to me I read something about that somewhere some time ago. Each of them says on label, " Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP3" The numbers on the CD envelope, which I assume are the regisration numbers, are identical.

AS I have another AOA, is it possible somehow to slave them together to get at the drive that's full?

Again, thanks for your help

 

Your best (and easiest) bet would be to grab an external DVD drive, and a bootable live Linux distro. A bootable live Ubuntu should be available on just about any cover disk with just about any computer magazine. Check before you buy one though.

I say to get a DVD drive because, 1, they're up with the times and read both CDs/DVDs, 2, most restore disks are on DVD and 3, it's a heck of a lot easier than making a bootable USB drive and then the subsequent troubleshooting involved if you can't get it to work with your particular USB drive.

Anyways, hook up your USB DVD-drive, insert the bootable Ubuntu disk, enter the BIOS of your AAO (tapping F2 while booting will get you there), change the boot order so your USB DVD is first, hard drive second. Boot the computer up from the live distro, make sure you run it live without installing it.

When ubuntu is up and running (can take anywhere from a few seconds, to a few minutes) you'll be able to access the internal drive and remove files.

When you're done, shut down the computer, remove the USB DVD drive, and boot back into Windows.

P.S just out of curiosity, when you get back to windows, check to see if you have an SSD (total capacity of about 8Gb) or a HDD (total capacity of between 120Gb and 160Gb)

 

Thanks again for taking your time to help me out. As I'm away from home this week on vacation I won't be taking a shot at your instructions until next week and I might then even wait a couple of days for a visiting brother-in -law who isn't as faint a heart as I am in these matters. What you've outlined appears straightfoward and makes sense. If I can find this thread in a week or two I'lll try to remember to let you know how it turned out.

I'm pretty sure the HD is a SSD but I'll check if I can get the thing to work.

Again, thank you.

 

If it's an SSD, you might want to try one of the slimmed-down versions of Windows XP that are available. This afternoon sometime I'm going to be booting XP up in a VM with 8Gb set for hard drive space to see just how much a standard XP install takes. Another user in another thread is waiting for the info so I'm going to do it and post back there with how much space it's userped.

The thing with the SSD models, as good as they may be in their own right, is that they are very, VERY limited with regards to what space is available to be used for storage. If it is an SSD model, you'll probably want to find a larger SSD, or keep a large SD card on hand for storage of documents etc, and you will need a good app to keep the junk files out of the PC.

Also be warned that SSD's are only good for so many reads & writes before they fali completely, they're not THAT limited, but a HDD would usually last a lot longer (most come with a 5yr warranty from the manufacturer)

 

When we have this problem with our machines, we boot to either WinPE or MiniXP and run chkdsk c:/r and this fixes the problem 90% of the time. You'll need to either use an external DVD/CD reader as mentioned earlier or you can make a bootable WinPE environment on a USB.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 6092(WS.10).aspx

Make sure you read the 2nd comment at the bottom of the article or it won't work

 

Thanks TechMark for taking the time to reply. I'd like to know more about that which you are suggesting but am having trouble with the site address you listed. Can you try again?

 

Happy ending. Took the advice of going the ubuntu route. Installed it on a flash drive, fired up the machine, removed files, shut down/restart and back in business.

Bottom line(I think) - disk too full, not enough elbow room for Windows to fire up. Once some space was provided I had lift off.

Thanks to all who offered advice and encouragement. It was much appeciated.

 

Just so u know what ur up against with regards to available space on an 8Gb SSD, here's a link to my post which includes all figures I derived from a basic XP SP3 install compared to useage of the restore disk from an Asus Eee netbook.

 

Aw, nuts - I can't believe this! I did as I outlined above and thought I was in good shape. I had my Windows back and was feeling pretty smug that I had fixed it. I should have known better. A day or two later, I started the machine and got "NTLDR is missing" at the boot. I can slap the flash drive in and get booted in the ubuntu thing called EasyPeasy but I would really, really prefer to have my Windows XP back again. Although completely unfamiliar with any os other than Windows, I browsed around this EasyPeasy thing looking for some kind of restore point but I couldn't find anything like that.

I'm open to suggestions.

 

That usually points towards registry corruption, the Micro$oft official KB for the problem takes you through steps to restoring the registry, it's a long drawn out complicated process. The absolute best bet in this scenario, is to locate an XP disk that works with your version (eg. the AAO most probably came with an OEM Windows XP Home Edition SP3, so you'll need that type of XP disk) pop it into an external USB DVD drive and do a "Repair Install". It's not the first option (which uses the recovery console), it's the second option after it's scanned for installed versions of windows where you can press "R" to repair the OS. This will take about 25-30 mintues depending on the computer.

There is an alternative, not guaranteed to work though, that is booting from the XP disk once again, and using the recovery console to run "FIXBOOT" or "FIXMBR", you can also try "BOOTCFG /REBUILD" in the console as well. But by far the easiest option is the first one i mentioned.

Or, if you have no other options, try a factory restore. But I stand by it, the SSD is the problem here, it's more than likely not physically defective, they're just not good enough for mainstream use.

 

Finally, I'm back up and running. Messed around trying get rid of he NTLDR thing and found a site that gave me directions how to use a flash drive to get past it. Tried it and it only took me to another file that was missing or corrupt. College-computer-course-instructor brother-in-law came for a weekend visit. Tactfully mentioned my issue and he attacked it like a shark in bloody water. After several hours and not getting anywhere I thought he was stumped. This morning he announced that he had fixed it. He knew what he did but didn't know why it worked. His take on the problem focused on the machine no looking in the right place for start up files. So he got into boot.ini and changed (1)petiton to (0)petition - didn't work. Whetn back in and changed (0)petiton to (2)petition - no joy. Ready to throw in the towel he went back and changed (2)petiton to the original (1)petition and shut off the machine. On a whim as he got up to walk away he pressed the power button and walla, it worked. I don't know if this is one of the myteries of the universe or what, but I don't care. All I know is that I'm back in business and I'm not messing or trying to tweak this thing any more. Lesson learned.