What to do When Windows Fail to Boot

by Otis Cooper

Published on this site: May 29th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

When Windows fails to boot it is normally caused by you installing a program or device and it has caused a conflict with one or more other programs.

This will no doubt give you plenty of heartaches if you're not certain which program caused Windows to not boot up.

If you recently installed a program or application and know where it was installed,you may be in much better shape as for as correcting the error.

Here are common ways to correct the problem of your computer not completely booting up or not booting up at all.

If your computer will not boot-up at all,hopefully you have made a good emergency boot disk. You can always make a windows startup disk by creating one from another computer running Windows 98 or Me.

Perform the following if your computer won't Boot-Up at all.

1. Put your boot floppy disk in the floppy drive and turn on the PC.On some computers, you may have to access the bios and select the Boot priority to your A: drive.
   
   Save any changes and select "Start Computer without CDROM support" and press Enter.Once you are at the A prompt,type dir c: and press enter.
   
   If your programs and other files are present,try restoring your system Registry by following the steps below.This may repair Windows,the Config. Sys and autoexec.bat files to where the PC may boot up normally.When the files are present,its a good indication of a good hard drive.
   
   
2. To correct the problem of your computer not booting up,type in "fdisk /mbr" and press Enter to restore your master boot record.Type "Scandisk C:" to check the hard drive for errors that have occurred. You can also type "Sys C:" to hopefully restore files needed to boot up your computer.
   
   
3. If the above procedures fail to repair your computer,you can repeat the first part of step one above and select "Start Computer With CDROM Support" re-install Windows.

Making a Windows XP Bootable Floppy

Windows XP users should create a boot disk now by placing a formatted blank diskette in the A: drive, open Windows Explorer to the C:,select Tools,Folder Options ,show Hidden files and and folders,then View Tab.

Now you uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System Files (recommended).You will see a warning and click Yes and click Ok. Copy the files ntldr,ntdetect.com and boot.ini onto the disk.Remove the disk and label it the Windows XP Boot Disk.

After making your boot disk,recheck "Hide protected operating system files and folders (recommended)" in the Folder Options dialog box.

To use the disk when Windows XP won't boot,place the disk in the drive,and then re-boot,the computer, Windows simply bypass the basic boot files on the hard drive and continue to boot up.

If the PC Won't Boot Pass Windows

1. If your Operating System is Windows Millennium,turn on the computer and immediately press and hold down the CTRL key.Once the startup options appear,release the CTRL key. Select Safe Mode and press Enter.You are now in Windows limited version.If you know what caused your computer not to boot,you can now either change or delete that program.
   
   
2. Repair your Registry by selecting Start,Run and typing "scanregw /fix" and press enter.This will fix any damage done to the Registry. You can also restore your registry which replaces your current registry with an earlier copy that was backed up by your computer.Click on Start,Run and type "scanregw /restore and press Enter.
   
   To repair your Windows 98 Registry,hold down the CTRL key as you start the PC and select "Command Prompt Only".Type "scanreg /fix" and press Enter and "scanreg/restore" to restore a previousely saved copy of the Registry.
   
   If you have Windows XP,press F8 after rebooting the PC should Windows freeze while booting up. You can select "Last Known Good Configuration" after rebooting to allow the computer to boot the last backed up files.And you can choose "Safe Mode" to remove any files you know caused the operating system to hang up.
   
   Be prepared when your operating system fail. It would be a great idea to go over this article a few times and print it.Make yourself s notebook and place this and all related articles there.
   
   If your computer fails to boot or begins to become unstable,you can refer to these articles to make corrections that are needed.
   
   Be sure to note any changes you make to your Registry and if you're not sure,its best to find a friend that's pc savvy first.Above all,be certain you back up your registry before making any changes and know how to restore as well.

Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user that is serious about knowing computers. Use his informative articles and videos to understand every aspect about the PC. Read more about his formula for pc training at http://www.repairarticles.com