Windows XP Startup Fail

[DarkSerge]

I'm having major issues with my older Windows XP system.

 

I was getting a notification of a corrupt file, some random file in my Firefox users directory and it suggested that I run Chkdsk to fix. So I restarted the system and let it run Chkdsk. It found a bunch of fragment and such and fixed things.

 

After that, it wouldn't restart properly. It would hang on a black screen with the hourglass for 5 - 10 minutes but eventually load the "Windows is starting...." screen. It would hang on that for about the same amount of time but never got anywhere (It seemed to start to load the Guest account but I lost patience and restarted.)

 

I can't boot into Safe Mode. It hangs on the file agp440sys. I Googled that and to fix that it wants me to run the recovery console from my XP disc. I can't run it because it wants an Administrator password but I don't know it. The only account I've used on the computer for years now (like 8 years maybe) is my personal user account and my account password wasn't working. I apparently set some Admin password years ago and have long forgotten it. So I can't boot Safe Mode.

 

I ran a repair install from the disc, and after that finished and restarted, I then booted up to the blue screen error SESSION5_INITIALIZATION_FAILED

 

A second repair install attempt proved unsuccessful.

 

Attempting to boot from last working configuration prompts chkdsk to run but it hangs afterward to no avail.

 

What now? No Safe Mode. No repair console. Repair install from disc has no effect.

 

P.S. I forgot to mention:

 

Windows XP Professional, all updates. No recent major hardware or software changes. I have a laptop (that I am currently using, Windows 7) so downloading a Linux Live CD or Ultimate Boot CD or something like that is an option.

 

Update: The hard drive is Hitachi brand, so I ran a drive fitness test through a utility on the Ultimate Boot CD and it returned no errors for the hard drive. I'm giving up for the night, but tomorrow I'm going to re-attempt the recovery console to get safe mode working and crack my computer's admin password.

Edited November 9, 2014 by DarkSerge

[abarbarian]

To be honest if you have no real reason to have XP then I would simply install something like Makulu Mate or any long term Debian os or possibly the latest Suse.

I seem to remember a thread in the last few days that was specifically about MS password recovery posted here,

 

http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=73391

 

that might have some useful info.

 

[DarkSerge]

Since this epic boot fail, I've been considering maybe just abandoning Windows. This computer houses several hard drives that I would access through my network, including my photography. I find networking shared drives between Windows and Linux never seems to work out very well for me. Plus, I prefer to keep my work on my desktop. In addition, although I have Linux experience (and have a computer that runs it) I feel I'm not skilled enough to use it as my primary system's OS. Some of the Linux issues on that other computer have resulted in me re-installing different OS.

 

Plus, I've got 8+ years on this computer, I don't like the idea of having to wipe it and start over. All my data is backed up somewhere, so that's not an issue. I like the comfort of my desktop when doing my work. Perhaps if I'm unable to restore the system and reach the final option of reformat I'll start asking for suggestions.

[Guest LilBambi]

Yes, ntpassword is the way to go to remove the password.

 

But it does seem as though you have much data corruption that could be an ongoing problem now. It's an older computer and the power supply could be weakening and/or the motherboard capacitors failing. Even if you reinstall Windows (which is apparently no longer viable), you may find that in short order more corruption will happen due to the hardware slowly failing. It would be almost better if it would outright fail than to slowly fail and cause corruption like this. Especially since it seems that the hard drive itself is fine.

 

You could try reinstalling and see how long you can get it to run without corruption. Could be a week, a month, or who knows. It could also be that you got hit with something/malware that is causing the corruption.

 

It could also just be a matter of registry rot. Not really fixable at this point unless you backed up the registry and can restore an older version.

 

Either way, if you have your data backed up, it's really time to start fresh with a new computer. Windows XP is not viable unless you are using it as a NON-Internet connected computer.

 

If you are using it as a NON-Internet connected computer, reinstall and see how it works. Without being on the Internet, it may do very well.

[DarkSerge]

I still can't get into Safe Mode. I managed to clear the administrator password and disable agp440, but it just hung on another file while booting safe mode, which is another whole problem to deal with (aswrvrt.sys is the new problem)

 

So now what? If I try Linux, I need something that I can share the drives on the network so I can still photo edit on my laptop. Something with really good Windows Networking capabilities. My data is mostly safe, everything is backed up or stored on another hard drive. The computer is going to be on the Internet. I upload a lot of my work from there. My laptop is viable to take over my work as long as I can access the desktop's hard drives through the network.

 

I am able to get into the recovery console with the XP disc now since I've cleared the admin password. I'm attempting to load system restore points.

 

Update: I've been able to use the recovery console to restore an old system restore point, so I can now boot to the login screenbut I am getting error code 0x80090019 about being unable to verify Windows.

Edited November 9, 2014 by DarkSerge

[DarkSerge]

I ran a repair install and everything seems to be working now.

 

The computer has a lot of hard drive space that I'll probably never use. I'm thinking of putting Linux on one of the partitions to use when I'm not needing my Windows applications. I'm thinking either Kubuntu or Xubuntu.

Edited November 9, 2014 by DarkSerge

[Guest LilBambi]

I would suggest one of two things:

 

Put the Desktop hard drive into an external hard drive enclosure to be able to use all that data space for storage, and put in another hard drive on another computer and install Linux on that.

 

Or

 

Use Trinity Rescue Kit disc and an external hard drive to lifeboat all your data so you really have it all, since you said you mostly have it elsewhere but not everything.

 

 

At that point you could wipe the disk and install Linux and create a VFAT partition to put the actual data back on the disk to share on your network.

 

Since you can get in now, you could also use GPartEd for Windows to resize the partition and create partitions for Linux and install Linux and then share the existing VFAT or NTFS partition in Linux. NTFS support is much better than it used to be in Linux. But make sure you use a Linux distro that does NTFS well if your Windows partition is NTFS. I bet latest versions of Kubuntu or Xubuntu would have that capability since they are touted to be good for Windows users. Linux Mint also would be good.

 

If it were me, I would backup anything that I don't have elsewhere first just because I hate to loose anything.

 

Good luck.

[DarkSerge]

I've already got an empty partition I can put Linux on :-)

 

All my data (like photography, music, etc.) are on non-OS hard drives, so removing them into an external enclosure or into another system is an option (plus I find that easier if I'm accessing them between 2 OS's) I kind of planned that a long time ago, that if this computer experiences epic failure, I can still pull the hard drives out with all my stuff (as long as the entire case or something doesn't explode in a fireball of rage.)