Computer Trouble

I have a desktop that won't start. It's running Windows XP SP 3 (I think?). I cannot remember what happened before the problem started, but here is what's going on:When I start it, everything seems fine until it get's to the point of loading the profiles (or, loading the log-in screen to select a profile). At this point it freezes with the blue screen and the Windows logo and the words "loading your personal settings..." or something of the sort. For a brief second it is responsive (because I can move the mouse) but then it freezes and nothing happens. When this first started, I could still get it to load by trying several times and getting lucky. Now, though, it never worksnever!On top of this, when I do load in Safe Mode, the machine freezes whenever I use any of the special keys on the keyboard (F1-12, CTRL, ALT, etc.)I have tried everything I can think of to get it to work, with no success. I have reset the bios to default settings; I have removed and reinserted the RAM sticks individually and in different orders; I have booted it with nothing plugged in; and I have searched the Internet for advice on this with no solutions seeming to work.Does anyone know what could be going on? It'd be really nice to have this computer running, even though I have my laptop.Any help is much appreciated! :-)Jon

Not sure if you have Microsoft Security Essentials or not, but evidently there's an issue with the MS anti-malware service which seems to cause what you're seeing. XP freezes after logonAnother possible culprit could be mapped network drives which are no longer online/available. I know I've burned myself with that a few times before.As a last resort, you could boot into Safe Mode with Networking, copy down all of your important files, then just restore the beast.

Microsoft is no longer supporting XP, they want you to upgrade.Other than that, I have no idea.HBD

Try a System Restore. How to start the System Restore tool by using the safe mode option with the Command prompt in Windows XP.

In addition to what faceman said there are two other ways to save your data -- and you need to save your data before doing a system restore, as you can lose some data ...1. put harddrive in another machine as a secondary disk and copy off of it (I have an adapter that makes an external drive out of old drives, desktop or older laptop)2. install ubuntu linux -- you can install it as a second operating system with a partition made during installation, and from the linux boot you can access the xp side (my laptop is set up this way so I can use autocad and some other tech software on xp)Once you have the data off you can reinstall whichever OS system or combination you want after doing the "format drive C" -- and then build in your other programs and watching to see if you get the same problem and what program sets it offEnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ...

These sorts of things are notoriously difficult to nail down to "what the problem actually is."If you have the ability to take your drive out and put it in another machine (as a secondary drive) that's a good start.
From here you can:-Test to see if the drive is okay (Does it pop up as an accessible drive in windows explorer?)
-Test to see if the drive has any bad sectors (Run a CHKDSK tool on the drive... right click on the drive, Properties -> Tools -> Error Checking and click on "Scan Now" ...enable the check box that says something like "attempt to fix bad sectors.").If it seems like the HDD itself is having troubles... then congratulations! The rest of your PC build is probably just fine! Unfortunately, reading and obtaining your data now becomes an issue. Your best bet is being able to read it as a secondary-drive from another PC. After that you get into HDD data recovery tools and such and I don't know much about that.
When this happens at work, we generally just load up an old HDD Image onto a new HDD and pop that into a machine. But, well... most normal people (me at home included) don't take Image backups of their data... :If all seems okay with the HDD itself, then this would seem to point at a hardware issue. The good news is that your data should be just fine!
Hardware issues can be from a pretty large range:RAM (most likely)
-You already tested re-inserting the RAM, that's a good test.
-If you have multiple sticks... you can try starting your computer on only 1 stick at a time to see if any particular stick causes a problem
...but it sounds like you've kind of tested this already any they're doing okay.Motherboard/CPU (about the same likely-hood as RAM, but more difficult to test)
-Only way to test is to replace with another one (yeah, right...) or hook your motherboard up to motherboard-monitoring tools and software (also... yeah, right...)
-If this is the issue, you'll likely just have to buy another computerPower Supply (least likely, and not very likely at all, but still possible)
-Can test by replacing with another power supply and trying again (also another thing most people don't have around...)
-If this is the issue, a new power supply is much easier/cheaper to replace then a new motherboard/CPU... but this is likely not going to the issue... power supplies are the hardiest part of most CPU builds.Hope this not-very-helpful list gives you some ideas.

Pfft. I have a machine that's still running Windows 98 (on a 2 gig hard drive). You young whippersnappers with your new-fangled contraptions... rant... rant... grumble... grumble....

I'm a big fan of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"All these "upgrades" just clog up RAM and provide something else that can go wrong.Enjoy

For future reference, you can save yourself some time and effort by having a copy of memtest, which does a thorough test of memory by doing various operations into each part of it. You can leave it running for hours, but if something is badly wrong you'll know within minutes.I think faceman identified the issue. However, his report is from 2012. Here is another interesting discussion about something that happened in April 2014 causing the exact symptoms you described so I think that's the place to look.The most pertinent part seems to be

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You don't have to uninstall the Microsoft Security Essentials program. It was a bad definition / scan engine update and they released a fix already this morning. Update your MSE definition files, reboot, and you should be fine. If you can't update with the MSE program itself hit the Windows Update Catalog and search on 1.171.64.0

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Had this issue on a bunch of Win XP systems this morning for one of my customers. Definition update 1.171.64.0 seems to have fixed the issue for Microsoft Security Essentials running on Windows XP systems. I downloaded it via the Windows Update Catalog site and then pulled out the

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X86-all-am_delta_01c5765ad7d884b780031a7c2f72fc4c30b14094.exe

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to apply to my 32-bit XP systems and the error was resolved.

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You can read the complaints on Microsoft's website or hunt around about it with this.Hope that helps.

I had something similar, though a bit more random, on a Vista system -- around 2 months ago.On a hunch, I replaced the disk drive (and restored from a recent backup). That fixed it.My main point is that there could be a variety of reasons, including hardware problems.