Problem With Boot Up

Hi, i recently defragged my hard drive and since then i have had a problem with my computers boot sequence.most times when i boot the system the monitor does not show anything until the operating system has booted and i reach the log in screen this can take up to 10 minutes, although quite a number of times the screen does not show anything up to half an hour later although the power light is green. The monitor also makes all of the usual noises at start up (degaussing? ). Sometimes it is possible to see the bios menu at start up and i can get access to 2 of these menus however i cannot get access to the main menu. I am able to get into the menu which allows me to choose which device to boot from by pressing F9 and i can also get into the settings menu by pressing Delete but i am unable to access the main menu by pressing F8. I have tried re-installing the operating system (xp home) and this has not solved the problem so i am guessing that the problem may either be with the Bios or the monitor (although i am unsure whether it is the monitor as the apparent cause of the problem was the disk defrag). Is it possible that the defrag has moved/deleted or currupted a necessary start up file which could be causing the problem.
I would be greatful for any advice or help,
Many thanks, James

CRT Relisys Monitor
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.120504-1619)
System Manufacturer: BIOSTAR Group
System Model: N61PB-M2S
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Phenom™ 9650 Quad-Core Processor, MMX, 3DNow (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 1918MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 6150SE

 

Welcome to Computer Help Forums, James!
How did you defrag the drive? Did you use the built in tool or 3rd party software.
With regard to your attempt reach the "Main Menu" by pressing F8. That will get you into the Advanced Boot Options" screen where you can select safemode and has other repair options. This is reached by a constant tapping of the F8 key while the machine is booting.

Have you used any other tools such as registry cleaners or optimizers?
Is your copy of Windows genuine or a copy?

 

thanks for your reply , i used the built in tool to defrag the hard drive. i did not have any problems previous to the defrag gaining access to the advanced boot options as i regularly entered them to change the boot sequence but no matter how often i press f8 i am now unable to access that menu. i have not used any other tools and my copy of windows is genuine.
thanks again for the reply

 

thanks for your reply i will make sure to do this tomorrow morning as it is quite late here now. thanks

 

Hi James, Dragnet has a good point and it may well be a sign of imminent hard drive failure. If you don't have any back ups of important data, I would recommend doing so as soon as possible. Then run the checkdisk, If it shows up a large number of errors be aware it may be on its way out.

However it does throw up a puzzle as to why F8 isn't working as it should, especially as you have reinstalled XP. Was that a full reinstall or a Windows repair install?
Any reports from the checkdisk may throw light on that though.

Nev.

 

hi, i have run Chkdsk however i missed the end so i was unable to see if there was any errors found, is it possible to find the information in a log file or something similar? i did a quick search on the internet and was told to follow this process Start -> Run -> type "eventvwr.msc" (no quotes) -> ENTER. Click on Application and select the most recent winlogon entry. i did this and the following information came up...

Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

312568640 KB total disk space.
20780376 KB in 42884 files.
11264 KB in 5554 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
124728 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
291652272 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
78142160 total allocation units on disk.
72913068 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
c0 bd 00 00 41 bd 00 00 85 e3 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....A...........
55 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f9 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 U...............
f2 5f 8c 03 00 00 00 00 5e 81 bb 19 00 00 00 00 ._......^.......
58 39 d1 06 00 00 00 00 6c a2 77 73 01 00 00 00 X9......l.ws....
d8 ee 08 bc 0a 00 00 00 0e 80 a6 5a 0c 00 00 00 ...........Z....
f0 a2 ba 89 00 00 00 00 a8 39 07 00 84 a7 00 00 .........9......
00 00 00 00 00 60 55 f4 04 00 00 00 b2 15 00 00 .....`U.........

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

is this information what i need or will i have to complete the chkdsk again to find out the state of my hard drive ?

thanks again, James

 

the system is still not running as it should be. the screen remains black until at least the log on screen appears after windows has booted, but the light on the monitor is green. occasionally the screen goes black again after it has come on and clicks a few times (degaussing?). i have just timed how long it took for me to see an image on the screen and it was 2:41, there was no bios screen before windows boots up.

thanks again, James

 

Have you tried the system with a different monitor. The CRT monitor that you are using is pretty old.

 

hi, i dont know anyone with a spare monitor i could use, however my television has a pc input socket (vga) and my computer has a vga output, would you expect my HDTV to work as a monitor using just a vga cable.
thanks, James

 

thanks for the reply, i ordered a cable yesturday hopefully it will arrive soon and i can give it a try, i will post the results here.

 

Was this resolved?
just to add my two cents to this also, defragging is NOT necessary to the everyday user, you dont mention if the drive is IDE or SATA, when you reload the OS you need to install the additional SATA drivers (if you are using SATA) otherwise you can get all sorts of problems.
and to answer your question about would a defrag cause any issues, no the BIOS is before the OS loads so it should not affect anything to do with it.

Any questions, just ask

 

hi, yes the problem was with my monitor after all, the computer works as normal when connected to my tv and im not looking for a new monitor, i should probably have tested the monitor first but i do not know anyone with a monitor i could use, it is also an expensive thing to test. thanks to everyone who has offered a suggestion, i will also update the sata drivers, would i get them from the manufacturers website or are they standard ? thanks again, James

 

Always best to obtain new or updated drivers directly from the manufacturer, a lot of other sites offering drivers can be either out of date, poorly made copies or worse.

Best of luck though and good news that you are at least sorted for now.

Nev.

 

thanks again for all of your help,
James