Computer must be shut down to be restarted

[Dr. Avery]

I am curious if anyone here has run into or has a soloution to this problem:

Whenever I try to restart (as opposed to shut down) my computer, it shuts down appropriately returns to the P.O.S.T. and after the hard drive works for a few seconds hangs on a completely black screen. In order to restart I have to power down entirely, and power back on. This isn't really a horrible situation as I only resart every few days, but it is a dash irritating. I have tried several things but nothing seems to work. I don't recall having this problem with win 2k (same machine).

System:

ECS K7S5A motherboard
Athlon XP 1600+ processor
1024 MB pc2100 DDR RAM
Geforce 2 mx 100 / 200 Video card
Soundblaster live! value Sound card
Maxtor 40gb 7200 rpm ata133 HD
Win XP pro all current updates and SP1
Any help or advice would be appriciated.

[gbread49]

Hmmmm,,,, during the POST, have you noticed any "error" messages displayed before it goes to a black screen?

[Dr. Avery]

Nope - POST is clean. I do a full ramcheck every boot. I've tried underclocking the memory and processor to check if it was temperature issue. As yet nothing works. Thanks for the reply.

Al

[LPDad]

It sounds like you might have a driver not lre-oading properly or an app is hanging. In either case XP is supposed to bypass the problem.
As it seems to be happening only occasionally it would probably be a real pain to try to track down. (it should be showing up in the system logs, administrative tools, after you finially get it restarted)

If you do not want to mess with it you can try the following:

pull up the command prompt in XP and type: sfc /scannow

then put your xp disc in and wait for about 15 minutes. This repairs all of the critical windows system files to their original condition and should address any system errors that might be causing the hangs.

OR (Probably the best option)

Put your XP disc in and go through the steps of a full windows XP install (NOT an update). After the reboot keep going until the point where the installation program actually detects a previous windows install-> at this point just choose option "R" -- repair the previous windows installation. (NOTE: this is DIFFERENT from the option to repair windows using the repair console<-- do not use this option--it is basically a command line option and is a pain to use)
This last option will basically go through and completely repair any windows problems and reload all of your drivers--BUT IT RETAINS YOUR COMPUTER SETTINGS. This option takes about an hour or so. This is the easy way to fix most (but not all) problems.

[rastagard]

What a great tip! I have been looking for a way to fix some annoyances and the repair console left me totally befuddled. (more or less my natural state)
My explorer.exe crashes on me quite frequently and I suspect a corruption of some sort. I hope to try this fix over the weekend.
Thanx, LPDad!:computer:

[LPDad]

There are a ....sh...a TON of tips/fixes like this for XP. The problem is keeping them all straight and then of course finding them when you need them.
I have leaned alot by trial and error (mostly error) in my 'puter building and tinkering.
Hopefully with this new forum we can keep in touch and share fixes and tweaks that really work.

[Music Pirate]

Originally posted by LPDad
There are a ....sh...a TON of tips/fixes like this for XP. The problem is keeping them all straight and then of course finding them when you need them.
I have leaned alot by trial and error (mostly error) in my 'puter building and tinkering.
Hopefully with this new forum we can keep in touch and share fixes and tweaks that really work.

Try taking cerification exams and everytime you get one exam done up popups a new one. But LP is right on the nose with doing repairs for XP with the sfc and/or the repair previous XP installition. But I have come across things that can't be fixed by that like repairing Internet Explorer or Outlook Express. Since they are already built in with Windows you can't remove them. But just doing a "new" installation..using the IE setup installer and reinstalling IE doesn't work. Because you have to make XP thinks you havn't nstalled IE or whatever program by doing some registry editing to get it to work.

[Dr. Avery]

Thank you all for the advice.
Al

[Lion7718]

Dr. Avery:
I have uploaded this file here before on another thread...somewhere. I have added a few things to it since then, so check it out.

[Music Pirate]

Originally posted by lion7718
Dr. Avery:
I have uploaded this file here before on another thread...somewhere. I have added a few things to it since then, so check it out.

Well the other way of reinstalling IE which wasn't stated in the zip file, but here is what to do..

1. While you are logged on as an administrator, click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. Locate the appropriate registry subkey, right-click the IsInstalled (REG_DWORD) value, and then click Modify. To reinstall only the Internet Explorer 6 browser component on Windows XP, use the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
To reinstall only Outlook Express 6 on Windows XP, use the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}

4. Change the value data from 1 to 0, and then click OK.

5. Quit Registry Editor, and then download and install Internet Explorer 6: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp.

[Lion7718]

These sites might help a little also:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.ph...=guide&dld=350

http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/internet_explorer.htm

[S!aaps]

I use that cmd sfc loads on win2k,
if I have any problems a quick scanonce /quiet and most of the time its all sorted out.
Here is the full set of switches if others want to try it out.

Microsoft(R) Windows 2000 Windows File Checker Version 5.00
(C) 1999 Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved

SFC [/SCANNOW] [/SCANONCE] [/SCANBOOT] [/CANCEL] [/ENABLE] [/PURGECACHE][/CACHESIZE=x] [/QUIET]

/SCANNOW Scans all protected system files immediately.
/SCANONCE Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
/SCANBOOT Scans all protected system files at every boot.
/CANCEL Cancels all pending scans of protected system files.
/QUIET Replaces all incorrect file versions without prompting the user.
/ENABLE Enables Windows File Protection for normal operation
/PURGECACHE Purges the file cache and scans all protected system files immediately.
/CACHESIZE=x Sets the file cache size


S!

[rastagard]

Oy! Back to totally befuddled!

I'm sure many will find all that stuff useful and maybe some day I will too. Keep it comin, it's all good.:computer:

[Dr. Avery]

I think this is just one of those weird hardware issues. It has persisted through more than one installation of XP. I was unable to find a solution even in the internal microsoft KB (as opposed to the public KB).

I have been able to determine that it is at the NTloader stage that it hangs. I've subsequently tried reinstalling all boot files - again to no avail.
I am next going to research Boot.ini settings. Mine currently reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microso ft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

I think that this file may well hold the soloution.

Thank you again,
Al

[gbread49]

Dr Avery, just out of curiosity, I took a look at my boot.ini file and it does differ somewhat from yours, could just be the way the systems are configured though. The "time out" entry is user specific, but the rest could make a difference. Here is mine to compare:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ = "Microsoft Windows"