Original message and reply:


"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
news:eBFKtkNRHHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>
> "Martin Whybrow" <aholeintheground@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:CcSvh.57817$RL5.27332@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net...
> > I'm trying to fault find my father's recently acquired PC.
> > System is Asus K8V SE Deluxe mainboard
> > PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 8x AGP, 128MB DDR video card
> > Maxtor D740x-6L IDE drive on Primary master
> > Samsung Spinrite SATA drive 120GB on SATA 1
> > DVD-RW drive on IDE secondary master
> > DVD drive on secondary slave
> > 512MB RAM in DIMM 0
> > AMD Athlon 64 3000+ CPU.
> > Windows XP SP2 on IDE master drive.
> >
> > System POSTs correctly, all hardware is detected. After POST beep,
system
> > resets; this looping continues ad-infinitum.
> > I've tried going into SAFE mode after hitting F8 with the same results;
> I've
> > also tried SAFE mode with DOS prompt, VGA mode and last known good
config
> > mode and I've tried "Disable automatic restart on system failure" in
case
> > there's a BSOD I'm missing, all give the same behaviour (and no BSOD).
> > Machine boots Knoppix CD-ROM and runs with no problems and I can access
> the
> > (boot) hard disk.
> > Boot machine from XP CD and select recovery console; run chkdsk with no
> > major problems. I've tried FIXMBR but this doesn't change anything.
> > I've also edited boot.ini to change the NoExecute parameter to AlwaysOff
> to
> > disable DEP but this has made no difference.
> > I've tried running the machine with the SATA drive disconnected and I've
> > flashed the BIOS to the latest release (1007); again, no difference.
> > Unfortunately I don't know the history of this machine so I don't know
> when
> > it first failed (it was given to my father in an unknown state).
> > I'm running out of ideas, any help appreciated.
> > Martin
> > --
> > martin<dot here>whybrow<at here>ntlworld<dot here>com
> >
> >
>
> Since it was given to your father in an unknown state, you do not
> know what's lurking there. Reload Windows onto a freshly partitioned
> and formatted disk. It takes only an hour or so.
>
>
I reinstalled XP and recovered the license key from the original
installation. New installation working and activated.
Ran Windows update, 1st pass OK (updating Windows update). 2nd pass of
update had a huge number of updates to download and install (SP2 not
included); selected all and started update process; PC rebooted at some
point and entered the endless loop of BSOD and restarting.
I tried re-starting in safe mode but that also failed; I re-started in safe
mode + command prompt and made some progress so I saved the ntbtlog.txt file
to a floppy then deleted the file from c:\windows .I then re-started the
system in logged startup mode and got the BSOD; I then booted into Knoppix
(so that I didn't overwrite ntbtlog.txt) and checked the contents of
ntbtlog.txt and found it had only 1 entry "did not load driver AFD.sys",
(strangely this file had a time that showed it to be older than the point at
which I'd deleted the old ntbtlog.txt file). I tried booting into safe mode
but got the same result (BSOD) as trying a normal boot.
I finally resorted to using my camcorder to capture the BSOD (which is
present for 1 video frame, (thanks Microsoft for that incredibly helpful
feature )) and have gleaned the following information (edited to save typing
useless information):
"A problem has been detected .........
If this is the first time ..........
Run a system diagnostic .........
Disable or remove any newly installed hardware and drivers ......."
What next? Please do not suggest reinstalling XP again!
Martin
--
martin<dot here>whybrow<at here>ntlworld<dot here>com