-=PCTechTalk=- Re: XP Musical boot failure
- From: Gman <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 22:41:32 -0400
I'm guessing that I'm the one you're talking to here. :)
I saw your reply, but didn't see much that I could add without having the
system in front of me. That is still the case, but I'll see if there's
anything else I might be able to add now that I've had some time to
subconsciously digest the previous reply.
Peace,
Gman
http://www.thevenusproject.com/index.php
"The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask"
----- Original Message -----
From: <recklessmaverick@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 10:01 PM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: XP Musical boot failure
>I have not seen any response to this yet. Perhaps it slipped by when
> you weren't looking. :-))
I try my best not to look, but this is like one of those really bad highway
accidents where you just can't help but slow down & gawk a little. ;o)
> I'm cleaning everything that might have gotten put on each OS off to a
> safe place to get ready to reinstall everything and would like to read
> any comments you might have before I do so.
>
> My latest comments are prefaced by three dashes - - -
>
> Also let me clarify... during boot to XP the black screen with large XP
> splash appears then disappears, then the blues screen and the small XP
> splash appears briefly, seconds later the XP splash reappears and the
> boot gets to the musical point and then hangs. This may have been clear
> before, but I never said specifically that the blue XP splash screen
> appeared twice.
The first screen is something like "Windows is starting up". The second is
something like "Windows is loading your preferences". The first one looks
to the System area of the registry. The second focuses on the User area.
Perhaps we're looking at a corrupted registry in the User part. Remind me:
Have you tried a System Restore to back to before the big bang?
> The hardware configuration error is still popping up, so I will remove
> both drives, do a good inspection of everything and then put them both
> back in. As insurance against a booby trap inserted by HP I will
> relocate the boot partitions to the original 500GB drive. Maybe I am
> paranoid but they **did** booby trap the partitioning of the drive so I
> think it is fair to be paranoid about the 500GB drive being the boot
> drive.
Triple check the cables, too. I would even suspect the power cables and
swap them for any other molex connectors that might be available. Even if
none were available, I'd likely pull a couple of 'good' ones from lesser
devices just to make this switch. Give those now deprived devices the ones
that used to go to the hard drives and see what happens.
Then, see below the below, below.
> Don
>
> recklessmaverick@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> - - - See below:
>>
>>
>>
>> Gman wrote:
>>
>>> See below:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> The XP install was first. Then Vista. Then XP was imaged followed by
>>>> Vista and the Data Drive.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> This changes my initial guess, although I'm not yet sure where it sends
>>> it.
>>>
>>> - - - I don't know either as I thought that was the sequence I included
>>> in my original message.
I'm sure you did, but I handle a veritable cornucopia of issues every day
including weekends (not just from this group and not just about computers),
so I think that I think my brain is currently fried, I think. Err,
sometimes.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Data drive was moved and moved back by Vista. XP became screwed up.
And this really makes no sense to me, even though I've tried to offer up
possible reasons why it might happen. If the data drive is located inside
the tower, I'll now blame the possible loosening of a cable, static
electricity from your hand hitting something, you forgetting to turn off the
machine before diving inside (you reckless pirate!), etc.. If the data
drive is in an external, ignore the previous guesses (except for the turning
off of the system/diving pirate deal).
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Was XP fired up at any time while the data drive was not where XP
>>> expected
>>> it to be?
>>>
>> - - - No, not that I can remember.
There goes my Leaping Pirate excuse. ;}
>>> Restored Data drive. Restored XP. Rewrote the Vista MBR using EasyBCD.
There goes my System Restore idea. ;)
>>> XP was already messed up by this point, so the proverbial "if" is likely
>>> to
>>> be found within an action (or inaction) prior to this exercise.
>>>
>>> - - - I agree, restoring happened after the problem. Question is why
>>> didn't it fix the problem. To answer that we need to know what caused
>>> the problem.
A corrupted system file that's somehow unaffected by System Restore? A
still somewhat loose data or power cable connection to the XP drive? Lab
rats getting loose in your computer room? Insufficient power through your
home (i.e. semi-frequent brownout conditions)? Voodoo?
>>>> ***** If Vista hijacked permissions, I suspect I would need to restore
>>>> Vista to release the hostages. But, since the restored XP had those
>>>> permissions, why didn't restoring it fix it? Could something have made
>>>> changes to ntldr that would cause the problem?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The rest of these questions appear to focus specifically on my
>>> suggestion of
>>> 'Permissions'. Never lose track of the fact that this entire suggestion
>>> is
>>> only a guess. "IF" a serious inquiry were to be brought into this
>>> mystery,
>>> it could very well turn out to be something else entirely.
>>>
>>> - - - What else might be the culprit?
See below the above below above.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>> Under NTFS, permissions are written directly to the drive holding the
>>> 'permissioned' items. A restore of the Vista &/or XP volumes would do
>>> nothing to modify the permissions physically stored on the NTFS
>>> formatted
>>> Data drive. Only a restore of the Data drive could do that.
>>>
>>> - - - This suggests that the data drive restore "should" have fixed the
>>> problem UNLESS the "permissions" are contained in an area that was not
>>> included in the image. Perhaps the FAT?
I don't know enough about permissions to confirm or deny this, but it sounds
perfectly plausible that they would be stored within the file system itself.
>>>
>>>
>>>> What might have had permissions hijacked that would cause the hang at
>>>> the point where it hangs?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> An important XP system file needed at XP's boot that did not give XP
>>> permission to engage it when it was called from the XP registry during
>>> bootup.
>>>
>>> - - - Is there a way to determine what might be the culprit?
Above, below the around up down. Bzzkt!
I think I'm fully drained on this question. 8>}
>>>> If XP doesn't see the my documents folder, it simply creates a new one
>>>> where it expects to find it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> True.
>>>
>>>
>>>> AVG Suite, MS Office 2007, MS Plus Digital Media Edition and Vispics
>>>> were the only programs installed in XP and they were installed with the
>>>> Program Files folder on the data drive.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Noted.
>>>
>>>
>>>> ***** It would seem to me the "missing" program files folder would
>>>> simply create error messages during boot and start up rather than hang
>>>> the boot itself since (I assume) startup programs don't start until
>>>> Windows is loaded.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> If the registry had been told to use a separate volume for its Program
>>> Files
>>> folder, all already existing Program Files files & folders need to be
>>> Copied
>>> over to that volume. If this is not done, Windows is likely to go
>>> looking
>>> in the wrong location for the files added to this system folder during
>>> the
>>> install. In other words, it will look for most (but not all) of them in
>>> the
>>> new location. If they are not where they are expected to be, unexpected
>>> results can be expected instead. As a precaution against this, I Copy
>>> the
>>> original to the new location, make the necessary changes to the registry
>>> to
>>> tell Windows to use the new location for both 'Program Files' & 'Common
>>> Files' and then leave the old ones right where they are.
>>> - - - During installation some programs do not give option to
>>> select
>>> where to install. I assume at least some of those would look to the
>>> registry
>>> to find the default program files folder. I would not be surprised to
>>> learn
>>> that some do not and instead automatically install to C:\Program Files.
>>> If
>>> something like that was installed could/would it be a contibuting
>>> factor?
>>> If a program that does not use the registry default but did give the
>>> option
>>> where to install and I oooopsed and failed to select the data drive,
>>> would/could that be a factor?
If you don't tell an app where to install it will default to wherever the
registry thinks it should go (to your established Program files area,
regardless of where theat might be), UNLESS, the program itself was hard
coded to install to a specific place like C:/Program Files or just C:/. An
app that's coded this way will not care that the rest of the party is up in
apartment 'D:/'. No factor here that I can see.
>>>> ***** At any rate I will simply reinstall both systems and start over.
>>>> And everything is going to go where the OS wants it to be. And then I
>>>> may try relocating the "My Documents" and "Documents folders to the
>>>> Data
>>>> Drive (or maybe an external) and point XP and Vista (respectively) to
>>>> them. I'm thinking that using the internal data drive will be best
>>>> and
>>>> just "sync" it to an external when I need to go portable.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Fair enough. Although you are choosing to use much less than you have
>>> learned here, the fact remains that you now know a heck of a lot more
>>> than
>>> you did before you started these experiments. Perhaps it's time to drop
>>> the
>>> 'reckless' part from your name. ;)
>>>
>>
>>
>>> - - - I have not yet done the reinstall of anything. Since I have
>>> access to everything I need to do in Vista (Thank goodness for portable
>>> applications on an external drive) I am in no hurry to do so as long as
>>> it might be useful to keep the problem around in order to do
>>> troubleshooting or just poking around looking at things. I have a
>>> feeling that some of the "reckless" remains so I won't be in a hurry to
>>> change that either. :-))
I'm scared, Don! Hold me! ;^)
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