DELL Windows XP home hangs at user accounts page

Perform a Repair Installation - this will not affect any current users or settings...

Make sure the PC's BIOS is set to boot from a CD.

Then insert your Windows XP Setup CD, and restart your computer.

1. When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your
screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

2. Press ENTER when you see the message "To setup Windows XP now"
and then press ENTER displayed on the "Welcome to Setup" screen.

3. DO NOT choose the option to press R to use the Recovery Console!

4. In the Windows XP Licensing Agreement, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.

5. Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box,
and then press R to repair Windows XP.

6. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

EE33
I did what you say changed bios boot sequence to boot from CD but when it reached the message saying "press any key to boot from CD",i pressed anykey and
the cd started to spin in the cdrom drive but nothing actually loaded from the cd and the screen went to that
winXP logo welcome screen and HUNG.It just does not want to go any further than that blue screen with Windows XP Logo.

shanti

You only have five seconds to boot from CD, if you are getting to that same
XP voot screen with progress bar then it is not booting from the CD in time,
you are getting the "Press any key..." text so, you gotta be quick!

Yes,i did boot within 5 secs.

Secondly,It is not the XP "boot up" screen it hangs at its the blue screen after at "users accounts" screen, after that boot up.

Thirdly,after i click "press any key to boot up from CD"  the cd is spinning vigourously thinking it is trying to
load somet and after 10 secs or so then the blues accounts screen comes up and there it hangs.......

shanti

EE33,

I do appreciate u r time.

A question.........

If it was the hard disk not working will it even reach the stage i am stopping at????

If it was the CPU will even reach the stage i am stopping at????

shanti

if it was hdd you may see a black screen no boot, if it is the processor you wont even have any power.

blue screen means hardwre problem, do you have a slave hdd take it out could be the slave, did you install soemthing recently upgrade a dispaly driver video card?
tap f8 like before but this time in the advanced options choose last known good config that worked.
And for safemode choose with networking.
Or try booting your machine in vga mode you can see this in the advanced options too.
If your network card has failed or bad ram can cause this. Incompatible drivers.
see how go for now.
Merete

The Blue screen is not the usual "BSOD" screen,its the colour blue of windows xp with a 2"
darker blue bands at top and bottom of scree,u know what i mean.

There is only one HDD no slave drive.

This pc in question  have no networking,only one pc.

No new hardware or software were installed prior to this problem.

thanks for all u r time i have run out of time today but next try will be tomorrow when i will try
advanced option,but can u please tell me where is this Advanced options?????

shanti

Are you sure this isn't just an un-Activated XP?

Meaning, the 30 day grace period has ended?

shantigohil,

Try pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL twice on that screen. Normally that should give you Windows Classic Login.

Login with your username / password.

If you are lucky enough to reach desktop, click start/run..type cmd.
run the following commands
regsvr32 vbscript.dll /s
regsvr32 jscript.dll /s

Good luck

EE33,

No its a pucker OS installed in by DELL.

MEDIAMX,

i have tried CTRL+ALT+DEL twice and even more times with no effect whatso ever.

Shanti

Shanti,

I suggest rebuilding registry using recovery console.

Boot to recovery console:
First rename the system file using the command below

ren c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\system32\config\system.old

Type exit at the command prompt. This will restart the system.

Boot back to recovery console again.

Type the following commands

cd \
cd system~1
cd _resto~1
dir

Now obeserve the directory listing. You should find a lot of folders starting with RPxxx(xxx will be numbers)
Each folder will be followed by the date it got created. Locate the file with the date when your system was working. Note the folder name (eg. RP22)

Type the following commands

CD RP22 (note: susbstitute the folder you located)
cd snapshot

copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy _registry_machine_software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy _registry_machine_sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy _registry_machine_security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy _registry_user_.default c:\windows\system32\config\default (note: "." before default)

Exit

This should take you to desktop

Good luck

hmm lets not get too teckie here often times it can be fixed wihtout hacking regestry and deep meaningful suggestions, lets keep it simple.
Boot to safemode shantigohil  administrator account r/click my computer properties advanced user profiles related to your logon.settings can you see your profiles.
Is these profiles on different partitions?
Run a chkdsk and defrag..
 and then a sfc /scannow in teh run at the strat menue type that..
Lets leave the regestry for now please.
If you have not honestly changed anything had a bad shutdown or power surge these can change boot.ini and other problems.
Have you checked you computer for spyware if it has been hijacked one of the accounts or system restore has become infected I would check it asap for everything.
Disable the system restore to delete them then re-enable it.
r/click my computer properties system restore.

In safemode that is or any account you can access... perform these and the virus scans.
Also in the internet options delete the temp files and cookies..

To check if you have any spyware
Please download HijackThis 1.99.1
http://www.cyberanswers.org/forum/uploads/HijackThis1991.exe

Open Hijackthis, click  scan and save a logfile
then navigate to programfiles hijackthis folder and copy out the log file
then copy the contents and paste the log here http://www.hijackthis.de/ 

 click "Analyse", "Save". at the very bottom of this page..  
Copy the address/url and post a link to the saved list here.

download stinger and run it in safemode
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

the more scans you can do in safemode the better as here windows frees up its system and hidden files for use otherwise these may not be accessable during windows as it is using them.

See how go now
Merete

You can boot from the XP CD and at the "Welcome to Setup"
screen, press F10 or press 'R" to repair. Then just follow
the on screen instrustions to repair the install.

Doing that is safe, all your icons remain intact and
all users settings too.

If that does not work, I would try to get the hardware
tested, but from a DOS environment I wouldn't know
where to start!  Potentially, the CPU can cause this
freeze up, but it can also (although not as likely as
CPU) be the RAM or a corrupt hard drive.

Try that repair, it is F10 when you see "Welcome to
Setup" booting off the XP CD.  Not "Welcome to
Windows XP" so you should be OK!

Thanks you all very much for all your thoughtful trobleshooting but i cannot go pass the Blue screen with WinXP logo screen.

Tried booting up with WinXP cd with bios changed to start from CD.......nothing still hangs at that screen

Tried to go into safe mode F8,it starts to go into safe mode with all corners "safe mode" indicated but a few secs. latter back to...Blue screen with Logo.

If i can get into safe mode or load the WinXP cd yes i can use all the suggestions above,but i cannot pass that dreaded Blue screen with Logo.

Please note.just a reminder......this is not the usual BSOD blue screen,but its the screen you normally see immediately  AFTER the initial Black screen with

WinXP   Logo with  that scrolling bars indicating windowsXP loading at start up.

Thanks all

Shanti

when you first tap f8 there is advanced options screens here you chose safemode,<<< best to choose safemode with networking if you want to access safemode
but  this choose  START COMPUTER IN VGA MODE  press enter
if your computer now boots it is your video card drivers or card is bad, ll will be huge ok. lol your display
Get you cd  for drivers for either your mainboard or video card.
Uninstall your display drivers from r/click my computer properties hardware devices display or video card.
Then insert your video card cd if you have an external or the mainboard cd and re- install the display drivers.

ok how savvy are do you have some experience with inside the case?
Hope so, firstly before going inside your case degause yurself or hug the machine run your hands over it this discharges your static electricity, unpower it pull out the plug.
If you have a network card take it out, any external video card.
Do you have an onboard card. move your monitor to the onboard socket
Unplug any devices such as printer scanner all of em.
power in again now see if your machine boots.

to run a chkdsk from cmd

press delete or del key when you computer first boots.
set yur boot from cdrom first
put in the xpcd press f10 to save and exit bios
windows will  boot and ask press any key to start setup do so wait till the drivers loads now choose R for recovery wait a minute
when it gets to which windows here you would normally put 1 but now we have this cmd prompt
see your curser flashng type in chkdsk /r  <<exactly space after k
press enter wait till it completes
when it comes back to cmd type in fix boot C: press enter
now take out your xpcd
type in  exit press enter
windows will auto boot.
 here you can choose to tap f8 here and at the advanced options choose>> last known good configeration that worked or allow windows to continue to boot up.
 good luck
Merete

"Thanks you all very much for all your thoughtful trobleshooting but
i cannot go pass the Blue screen with WinXP logo screen."

You shouldn't be getting as far as the Welcome screen though
if you are booting from your XP CD and hitting F10 when you
see "Welcome to Setup".

Thats not "Welcome" or "Welcome to Windows XP"
because it is the CD setup screen! It cannot crash out
loading that from the CD! If it does then it is certainly
your hardware :(

Thanks Mediamax will try it when i get a chance,will let u know how i get on.

shanti

mediamax,

I did try loading the cd again as you said and yes it did load this time,started to load files and at welcome pressed "R" and came to a recovery consule with
C:\windows and selected OS no.on the above list and it asked for administators password and i enter nothing just pressed "ENTER" and finally had C:| WINDOWS> and thats all i could go i did not know what to do next beacuse the next bit was a bit too complicated for me.So i had to call DELL.And after checking all hardware i was put on to DELL software where they went through exactly same process as YOU mentioned earlier for building registry.The DELL assistance said that the booting up  files were corrupted.So after rebuilding registry all worked ok without loss of any data.
So because your explanation was the most accurate to the problem i had i will accept u r answer.
Thanks a lot i have leart a lot today.Can you please tell me how

shanti

F10