Desktop stalls on bootup

[berderder]

Hey everybody,

 

I am helping a friend with his computer. I don't know the build, but it has Windows Vista. It stalls at the boot up screen where you press F2, F11 etc. Just stays there and no input from the keyboard does anything. Try switching keyboards - it's not something wrong with the keyboard.

 

Tried flashing the bios by taking out the cmos battery. It goes past the boot menu and starts up. After normal start up, the computer restarts and goes back to getting stuck in the boot menu (my colleague thinks it's because it's an unlicensed copy of Vista).

 

Try flashing the bios again, only this time it doesn't get past the startup screen again.

 

Any thoughts?

 

My goal this morning was the flash the bios and then boot from a fresh windows install cd, but, like I said, stuck at startup again.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks! 

[Cookiecrumbles222]

Is it close to its memory limit. (they sometimes wont try to load to prevent damage if its near its max.

[Cookiecrumbles222]

 i would try is putting the hard rive in another computer wiping it then installing a new copy of windows

[Master Disaster]

Is it close to its memory limit. (they sometimes wont try to load to prevent damage if its near its max.

Wow, that's literally the worse advice I've ever read, it's just wrong on every possible level.

OP, it's likely his hard disc has died and the machine is stalling while its trying to detect the drives.

Unplug all the hard drives and try to boot it again, does it still freeze?

[Altecice]

Wow, that's literally the worse advice I've ever read, it's just wrong on every possible level.

OP, it's likely his hard disc has died and the machine is stalling while its trying to detect the drives.

Unplug all the hard drives and try to boot it again, does it still freeze?

 

Correct answer, Pull out all the hard drives and see if you get can into BIOS without a long pause.

[Cookiecrumbles222]

Wow, that's literally the worse advice I've ever read, it's just wrong on every possible level.

OP, it's likely his hard disc has died and the machine is stalling while its trying to detect the drives.

Unplug all the hard drives and try to boot it again, does it still freeze?

*cries  lol it gave me that error one and thats how i fixed it so gosh lol

[Dabombinable]

Wow, that's literally the worse advice I've ever read, it's just wrong on every possible level.

OP, it's likely his hard disc has died and the machine is stalling while its trying to detect the drives.

Unplug all the hard drives and try to boot it again, does it still freeze?

That might be the problem, I literally just had the same issue on my old computer (Abit VP6 with 2x Pentium III, 2GB RAM) and it turned out that the Matshita CD Drive, which was the second one, had failed.

[berderder]

Wow, that's literally the worse advice I've ever read, it's just wrong on every possible level.

OP, it's likely his hard disc has died and the machine is stalling while its trying to detect the drives.

Unplug all the hard drives and try to boot it again, does it still freeze?

I'll try this and update with situation tomorrow. Thank you.

[berderder]

OK, I'm still here actually. Regained access to the pc. Tried pulling out the one and only hard drive. Still stalling at bootup....

[berderder]

That might be the problem, I literally just had the same issue on my old computer (Abit VP6 with 2x Pentium III, 2GB RAM) and it turned out that the Matshita CD Drive, which was the second one, had failed.

Tried unplugging the cd drive too...still freezing...

[Blake]

Hey everybody,

 

I am helping a friend with his computer. I don't know the build, but it has Windows Vista. It stalls at the boot up screen where you press F2, F11 etc. Just stays there and no input from the keyboard does anything. Try switching keyboards - it's not something wrong with the keyboard.

 

Tried flashing the bios by taking out the cmos battery. It goes past the boot menu and starts up. After normal start up, the computer restarts and goes back to getting stuck in the boot menu (my colleague thinks it's because it's an unlicensed copy of Vista).

 

Try flashing the bios again, only this time it doesn't get past the startup screen again.

 

Any thoughts?

 

My goal this morning was the flash the bios and then boot from a fresh windows install cd, but, like I said, stuck at startup again.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks! 

When it is frozen at that screen, take a screenshot/photo with a phone and post it.

 

To me it sounds like the old halt on error when booting.

could be that that USB controller is dead, most motherboards have 2 USB chipsets on them, try connecting keyboard to the other set and pressing F1 (that is normally the button to continue on error). If you have a MS keyboard, you may need to press f-lock first (as they suck and don't have the f keys enabled on boot).

[berderder]

When it is frozen at that screen, take a screenshot/photo with a phone and post it.

 

To me it sounds like the old halt on error when booting.

could be that that USB controller is dead, most motherboards have 2 USB chipsets on them, try connecting keyboard to the other set and pressing F1 (that is normally the button to continue on error). If you have a MS keyboard, you may need to press f-lock first (as they suck and don't have the f keys enabled on boot).

 

I'll give it a try later today. Thanks.