Xp wont boot without USB

mossy464

Hi All,

I'm having a problem with a compaq mini 110 netbook.

When you turn on the laptop it starts with the usual screen saying press F9 for boot options etc.

Then when you'd expect windows to boot it just hangs with a flashing _ cursor.

I've tried resetting CMOS settings to default, tested RAM, HDD but no joy.

Then I put XP install disc on a bootable USB to run the recovery console and tried FIXBOOT, FIXMBR and some BOOTCFG commands but no luck.

Then I noticed that when I try the second option on the USB boot menu it boots to windows as normal.

"2nd GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start windows"

However, this is the only way it will boot to windows. Any ideas how I can fix this?

Thanks

Fysh

That's bizarre. It sounds as though your OS install is using the bootloader from the USB drive, but...that shouldn't be possible. Not to mention that, unless you did it wrong somehow, the steps you describe in the Recovery Console should have resolved that problem for you.

Any chance of getting USB optical media and accessing the Recovery Console again that way? (This would remove the possibility of writing the repaired bootloader to the USB drive, and should at least help clarify how the problem is happening...)

mossy464

Thanks for the reply.

I may be able to get my hands on a usb cd drive so I'll try that and see what it does.

yoyo

In the bios try setting boot order to Hard disk first, may solve it, or else as fysh said you may have installed XPs boot manager to the USB key

Nick

mossy464

Will try these things, thanks.

However, before I even tried anything with the usb the problem was that the system would not boot.

Just hanging with flashing cursor.