T43p won't complete boot process

I'm wondering if any of you can help me figure out why my beloved ThinkPad won't boot.

Sometimes it gets stuck at a black screen with the mini-window "Loading personal settings ...."

Other times it will get to the desktop, and some icons will load, but the process never completes and I can't do anything.

I've done the hardware diagnostics and everything's fine.

Another question - if I have to resort to re-installing XP pro sp2, will the "Clean Boot" instructions I ran across work the same on a T43p? The lowest number I've seen is a T61.

I'm desperate! My office desktop is on the fritz too so I'm functionally computerless with a lot of work to do. Thanks, in advance, for your help.

 

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode? I would try to back up as many files as possible if i were you, just in case you need to reformat or something terrible happens.

Also eventually consider repairing or reinstalling windows as a last resort.

 

Safe Mode appears to have booted o.k. What do I need to look for now?

 

Hm okay sweet. Open up msconfig ([Windows Key] + [R], type "msconfig" with no quotes and hit enter).

Go to the startup tab and disable everything (or whatever you don't immediately know/trust). Hit "OK" and try to reboot normally.

If this fails, go back to Safe Mode into msconfig and go to the Services tab, and disable everything that isn't from "Microsoft Corporation." Then try rebooting normally.

I'm just trying to strip off any startup programs that might interfere with something. I might not be able to respond until tomorrow if something happens, but tell us how it goes. Best of luck!

 

I've unchecked everything in Startup; when I click OK, I get the following message:

An Access Denied error was returned while attempting to change a service. YOu may need to log on using an Adminstrator account to make the specified changes.

But I am the Administrator! Now what?

 

I tried again, and this time it "took." Re-booted, got past the "loading personal settings, but hour-glass still shows on the Task Bar.

So, unchecked all but Microsoft Corp. items in Services tab, and this time it appears to finish booting, at least in the Selective Start-up mode of msconfig.

I look forward to the next steps.

Thanks.

 

Hmm... Hourglass in the taskbar... You're getting tricky. Let's hope someone else can jump onto this thread with their own advice and input, I'm running a little blindly here. This is either a problem with Windows or a startup program. We're hoping for the latter.

1. How frozen is it?
Can you do anything in Windows such as navigate through the drive? If so you might want to back up any documents or files you can just in case we need to repair/reinstall Windows, which is a last ditch effort but will work.

2. Taskbar status
Are there any icons or programs loading in your taskbar (ie: Antivirus, etc.) or is it all just system icons (sound + network)?

3. What processes do you have?
Open up the task manager ([Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Esc]) and see what's running. Under the processes tab you should have more than about 25 processes. I'm not sure how many XP is supposed to have (I've used Vista for about a year now) but here on my work computer it has 36 with a few things open. If it's something low (below 20 or so) it's a sure sign Windows isn't loading all the way.
If it's higher check to see which processes aren't run by "SYSTEM" or "LOCAL SERVICE" or some other obnoxious all caps name, and you'll want to end them one by one, BUT FIRST type the process name into Google and see if it's run by Windows. The one you don't want to end is explorer.exe. But try killing everything else off and see what that does. Worst case scenario is a hard reboot (force the power off). This is also a good way to check for viruses.

4. Clean your Registry (You can probably skip this if #1 didn't work)
If you can install a registry cleaner, do so and run it. It can be a trial version, etc. as long as it gives you the option of deleting any registry keys it finds useless. This might further clean up any broken startup processes and the like. Oh wait! This reminds me!

5. Messing with the registry's startup keys
Open up the registry editor (Run... then type "regedit" and hit enter. You might need to be in Safe Mode to get there ) and then navigate to these two folders:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and look at the entries there. It's more startup stuff, and you might consider deleting the keys in there after backing up your registry (on a personal note, I'm daring and never back up my registry when messing around with those two keys, but I'm not suggesting you do the same.).

Hope this helps! I'm giving you everything I can think of. If you have better knowhow of what's going on you don't need to adhere to my recommendations. Tell me which numbers you try and how they go. I honestly have no clue what is going on but this is what I'd do to pinpoint the problem.

PS: If someone else is out there and has a suggestion of what to do, please help us out. I'm running out of ideas here!

 

Thanks for your suggestions. Will try these when I get home from a meeting tonight and let you know what works. (I'm thinking positively here!)

 

Now I've really done it. In trying to figure out which non-Microsoft services were the culprit of the earlier failure to boot, I must have done something stupid , because ...

now it won't boot at all. I first get a black screen with the possibility of choosing Safe Mode. When I do so, I get a blue screen that doesn't stay around long enough for me to read the message.

If I don't choose any mode, it just goes in a loop, trying again.

After doing some forum research on various sites, I decided to try the Recovery Console. Since I can't find my IBM OEM XP Pro CDs anywhere (oops ), I tried using the one from my husband's Dell laptop. I got to the place where it asked for an administrative password. I don't have one, so hit ENTER, and I was told that this wasn't recognized - after 3 tries, it throws me out.

How do I dig myself out of this hole?

Nardar

 

Oh dear, this is looking bleak. I am sorry for leading you to a dead computer!

The reason you have the password error is because of the different CD. Each OEM gets a copy of XP to distribute which is almost a full version-- it just won't work on other manufacturers' computers.

I think your only option now is to reinstall/repair Windows. If you call Lenovo you will probably be able to obtain replacement OEM install disks for a small fee (much less than buying a full version of XP), which will also likely give you the option of repairing XP correctly.

If you want to be daring, you can try a flavor of Linux (Ubuntu has generated some good reviews lately) either in place of XP or as a live OS (no installation) to copy over any important files you haven't backed up. I have very little experience with Linux, but it seems easy enough to just get around from the few hours I've dealt with it.

Again, I am terribly sorry for ruining your computer and now forcing you to spend money on an otherwise "free" (minus time and utter frustration) fix. I'll extend the offer to continue helping you as much as I can, but honestly at this point my track record says perhaps you'd be better off with someone else's advice.

Best of luck, my apologies, keep me posted!