System Restore

johndoe99

My PC failed to start this morning, it went straight to a Boot Screen, where I chose "Start Normally", but it refused to do so, i then chose "Last Known Good Configuration", that failed too. I then booted into Safe Mode and did a jump back to 2 days ago with System Restore, now this worked and Windows Started.

I installed no new hardware or software prior to this.

My question:
Any ideas what could have caused this that a System Restore could fix it so easily ?

Acer Aspire T671
Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz
1GB DDR2
ATI Radeon Xpress 1200
Realtek HD Audio
180 GB HD

practice

What o/s

Have you got automatic updates on.

yoyo

Could have been a incompatable driver pulled down from Windows Update as practice suggests, can happen occasionally

Nick

johndoe99

I have Windows XP Pro SP3, and i have Windows Update set to custom so that i can choose what to install, i have not installed any updates in over 3 months.

yoyo

johndoe99 wrote: »

I have Windows XP Pro SP3, and i have Windows Update set to custom so that i can choose what to install, i have not installed any updates in over 3 months.

I would backup your data and do a hard disk diagnostics scan just in case its the disk is at fault, it seems a bit odd Windows would just start blue screening randomly after nothing new being installed!

Nick

johndoe99

no blue screen appeared. it just went to the boot screen with the various boot options, and kept repeating that until i chose a system restore. i ran a full virus scan too, and just ran my diagnotics software and it gave a 100% pass.

yoyo

johndoe99 wrote: »

no blue screen appeared. it just went to the boot screen with the various boot options, and kept repeating that until i chose a system restore. i ran a full virus scan too, and just ran my diagnotics software and it gave a 100% pass.

When Windows XP blue screens it can be configured to "reboot on system error", so you wouldn't see the BSOD, and just be kept in an infinite boot loop

Nick

johndoe99

i guess i just need to keep my fingers crossed that this does not occur again, if it does, i have spare HDs to put in. Thanks for your input.

yoyo

johndoe99 wrote: »

i guess i just need to keep my fingers crossed that this does not occur again, if it does, i have spare HDs to put in. Thanks for your input.

I would definately run an diagnostics scan of the drive, the worst thing is the anxiety that the drive may crash when in the middle of something important,

Nick

johndoe99

it happened again this morning, this time it gave a message that 'PCI'.sys could not be found, i did a repair function, and backed up all my files to an ExHD.

I then binned that HD and installed a new one, and reinstalled.

Hopefully it was the HD and nows all fine.

Morpork

Did you actually bin that drive? If you still have it with the install intact you can ghost it (copy the image) to a new drive and that way you'll know if it's the install or the drive.

May well be nothing wrong with the drive.

johndoe99

Morpork wrote: »

Did you actually bin that drive? If you still have it with the install intact you can ghost it (copy the image) to a new drive and that way you'll know if it's the install or the drive.

May well be nothing wrong with the drive.

I formatted that drive, i was going to put it in a caddy and use it as ExHD, but don't want to take the chance in case it goes. It was a free PC, so i cannot complain.

yoyo

johndoe99 wrote: »

I formatted that drive, i was going to put it in a caddy and use it as ExHD, but don't want to take the chance in case it goes. It was a free PC, so i cannot complain.

It sounds too me like typical failing hard disk behavior, run a diagnostics scan to confirm this!

Nick

johndoe99

yoyo wrote: »

It sounds too me like typical failing hard disk behavior, run a diagnostics scan to confirm this!

Nick

I downloaded the Hitachi diagnostic tool (the manufacturer of the HD), after a complete scan it brought back an error message stating it could not scan certain segments of the HD.

So i'd say the system files were copied to a bad part of the HD and could not be accessed.

yoyo

johndoe99 wrote: »

I downloaded the Hitachi diagnostic tool (the manufacturer of the HD), after a complete scan it brought back an error message stating it could not scan certain segments of the HD.

So i'd say the system files were copied to a bad part of the HD and could not be accessed.

Thats exactly what happened, backup the data and get a new drive

Nick

johndoe99

yoyo wrote: »

Thats exactly what happened, backup the data and get a new drive

Nick

I did that, i put in a new HD, i have several, i use them as ExHD's. Thanks for your help, much appreciated.