Got a really odd problem, and it's probably one simple thing that's happened but I don't quite know how to find out! :(

 

Basically my PC running XP won't boot up. It finishes the initial motherboard stuff- memory check, what drives are there, etc but then goes black screen and absolutely nothing else happens- no hard drive activity, nuffink.

 

I tried booting off the parent XP installation CD and I get the same problem.

 

I put in an old Windows 98 boot floppy with an NTFS driver and that gives me a prompt. Using that, it allows me to look in all drives EXCEPT my XP boot partition. The other partitions on the same NTFS drive are all accessable, as is my other FAT32 drive which I use for backup, as are the CD drives.

 

So my current diagnosis is that my various drive controllers are working fine, the drives themselves are working fine.

 

Either I have a problem with my boot partition which is triggered (when it's scanned?) even if you're booting from CD, or there's a problem on the motherboard that is preventing anything from booting at all. (Scratch that last one, as it boots ok off floppy)

 

I'm still investigating as I type, but if anyone has any pointers I'd greatly appreciate it! :bow:

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Got it sorted! :D

 

Plugged the same drive into another PC as a secondary drive running XP. It recognised there was a problem and fixed it. Put it back into my machine and hey presto! One working PC.

 

Hope it gave everyone who read this something to do on a warm but overcast afternoon! :)

 

Mark