Hi all, looking for advice. Have a PC, that used to run on a Network within a large company. Some of these PCs were given away to employees with Windows XP installed. Supposedly, ready to fire up and run. All the the company info. was of course removed. What happens, is that upon start up, the screen displays a blue screen saying Windows is starting, please wait. Some 25 seconds later the Windows xp logo appears and all looks ok. Then the screen goes black and nothing further happens. Thought initially, that it might be looking for the Network it once belonged to. Maybe the XP installation is corrupt ? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks.
Yes, all I get on safe mode is what appears to be command line dialogue and nothing else . Once the page is full it just sits there.
you're probably going to have to wipe the hard drive an reinstall windows if this is happening. WHy don't you ask your fellow employees and see if the same is happening to their computers.
That's what I'm doing right now. Waiting for the installation to complete . Been stuck at "Preparing installation" and 33 minutes left for over 3 hours. Why so long I wonder ?. My main PC Install went fairly quickly , but that was all new , unused and bigger everything, so patience I guess. Thanks again.
It's trouble, that's for sure. I've Installed and reinstalled XP many times prior to this. Has to be a bad unit. It slows right down at 34 minutes and stays there for hours. By the time I get to where I have to type in the product key , I'm halfway finished typing in the number and the first block of numbers are still popping up, one at a time ! I have two other copies of XP so I tried to install them also. Just to see how far it would get. Exact same thing happens. I don't believe all the xp discs can be bad. I would like to know the reason why it's doing this, even if, I end up dumping the thing. Thanks for the input folks.
last time this happened to me, it was ram-related. disconnect all internals from the motherboard except the hard drive and one disc drive (don't cut power to the fans, obviously), as well as get down to just one stick of ram. try to install again from there.
Update : Thanks again Auslander. You hit the nail on the head. Took a memory strip out and all else I could and it's installing normal speed without hanging. Cheers, !!
now just start putting things back in, one at a time, until the source of the problem becomes known. i'm betting it's the ram; you should probably buy some new stuff, from a trustworthy brand, just to keep the machine performing well.
Yes, it was the Ram ok. I also need to replace the DVD reader/writer. It's a Unit for my Sister so want to give her something that's half decent. Everything installed and updated so we're in good shape. Once again, many thanks.
