Re: Boot trouble help

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:06:13 GMT, nospam@xxxxxxxxxx (Paul) wrote:

>In article <00unt1lo5i38ogghbpq8bj12pqmtt41r10@xxxxxxx>, Rick
><rblythe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I have a P4PE800 SE with 2.8 gig Prescott, no overclocking.  Lately I
>> have been having trouble with boot up.  The system hangs at the
>> Windows Professional logo boot screen, the moving dot loading bar at
>> the bottom keeps moving but the computer doesn't boot up.  Doesn't
>> matter if it is a cold boot or after having been on for a period of
>> time.  Other than this the system runs fine, no lockups or unexplained
>> problems during gaming or other activities.  It may boot fine for five
>> times in a row then hang for several times, no pattern.  All cooling
>> fans are running fine and the Prescott has a Zalman cooler. 400 watt
>> Antec power supply.  No new hardware lately, all software updates and
>> drivers up to date.   Anyway it is really a pain in the ***.
>> Appreciate any ideas I may have overlooked.
>> 
>> Thanks
>
>Do you have a backup for the hard drive ?
>
>You might consider doing a backup of the disk, then go to the
>hard drive manufacturer's web site, and download their disk
>test software. The one I used was non-destructive, which means
>it only did read operations, but ideally a test program should
>be doing both reads and writes. The test program should also
>look at the S.M.A.R.T. stats for the drive, to determine if
>the drive is about to fail. You might also consider using a
>program that reads the S.M.A.R.T. statistics while you are
>in Windows, to see how healthy the drive is - it is hard to
>interpret the numbers, and it requires a good deal of research
>to try to interpret them on your own.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology
>
>I have no idea whether this is a software problem or a hardware
>problem - perhaps the first thing I'd investigate, is whether there
>is a way to get the logo boot screen to go away, so you can see
>any text underneath. I don't know whether WinXP can be run
>such that it displays text, instead of the "progress bar",
>but it sure would be nice to see the equivalent of a Linux
>boot process, with its copious text messages.
>
>   Paul


Just wanted to say thank you for the ideas.  If anything turnes up
I'll let you know.  
.