Windows XP Home- blank screen on startup

When rebooting my system, the screen goes blank for a very long time. After a
few minutes, white dashes appear across the bottom of the screen and very
slowly the dashes fill in and become a solid white horizontal line. Then the
windows screen appears. The total process takes about 20 minutes to a half
hour.
How can I fix this problem

On Sep 14, 4:14 pm, MPW wrote:

How can I fix this problem

Buy a new computer that is meant to run the OS

Your sense of humor is wasted in this section. Why don't you take your show
on the road!

Thanks for nothing.

"Uncle Grumpy" wrote:

On Sep 14, 4:14 pm, MPW wrote:

How can I fix this problem

Buy a new computer that is meant to run the OS

Need more info:
Did it just start doing this?
Is it a new install?
How much RAM?
Did you add any hardware, or software?
Did you physically move the computer?
Details........

"MPW" wrote:

When rebooting my system, the screen goes blank for a very long time. After a
few minutes, white dashes appear across the bottom of the screen and very
slowly the dashes fill in and become a solid white horizontal line. Then the
windows screen appears. The total process takes about 20 minutes to a half
hour.
How can I fix this problem

Thank you for the reply. The computer in question is my daughter's and I have
been trying to help her with it over the phone. The system had been operating
slow and had poor response. There had been an attempt to add an additional
partition to the had drive, but it was never completed. As a result of not
finishing the partitioning, there was a large section of the hard drive that
was not assigned and unusable. This resulted in constant prompts that there
was not enough free space to complete various functions.
I walked her through the process of reclaiming that unusable space (using
"Partion Commander 10"). After completion, the system reported the full hard
drive space and things worked Ok until the first time that the system was
rebooted. That is when this blank screen with the dashes started. It is
almost as though the system is doing a "Checkdisk", but no prompts only the
white dashes at the bottom of the screen. The system has "Nortons" anti virus
and network protection.
The system seems to work OK once it is finished going through this long
blank screen process. We tried a system restore point, but to no avail. To
complicate things, she can not find her windows disks, however she does have
the product code. (it is an OEM).

Thank you MPW

"Script" wrote:

Need more info:
Did it just start doing this?
Is it a new install?
How much RAM?
Did you add any hardware, or software?
Did you physically move the computer?
Details........

"MPW" wrote:

When rebooting my system, the screen goes blank for a very long time. After a
few minutes, white dashes appear across the bottom of the screen and very
slowly the dashes fill in and become a solid white horizontal line. Then the
windows screen appears. The total process takes about 20 minutes to a half
hour.
How can I fix this problem

MPW wrote:
Thank you for the reply. The computer in question is my daughter's and I have
been trying to help her with it over the phone. The system had been operating
slow and had poor response. There had been an attempt to add an additional
partition to the had drive, but it was never completed. As a result of not
finishing the partitioning, there was a large section of the hard drive that
was not assigned and unusable. This resulted in constant prompts that there
was not enough free space to complete various functions.
I walked her through the process of reclaiming that unusable space (using
"Partion Commander 10"). After completion, the system reported the full hard
drive space and things worked Ok until the first time that the system was
rebooted. That is when this blank screen with the dashes started. It is
almost as though the system is doing a "Checkdisk", but no prompts only the
white dashes at the bottom of the screen. The system has "Nortons" anti virus
and network protection.
The system seems to work OK once it is finished going through this long
blank screen process. We tried a system restore point, but to no avail. To
complicate things, she can not find her windows disks, however she does have
the product code. (it is an OEM).

At this point the smartest thing your daughter can do is take the
machine to a professional computer repair shop. This will not be your
local version of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad. Since she has the Product
Key sticker, there will be no difficulty for the shop to do a clean
install of Windows.

I make this suggestion not to disparage your computer skills but because
it will be difficult to do anything else long-distance.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

The computer is awakening from sleep mode not a boot up.
"MPW" wrote in message
...
Thank you for the reply. The computer in question is my daughter's and I
have
been trying to help her with it over the phone. The system had been
operating
slow and had poor response. There had been an attempt to add an additional
partition to the had drive, but it was never completed. As a result of not
finishing the partitioning, there was a large section of the hard drive
that
was not assigned and unusable. This resulted in constant prompts that
there
was not enough free space to complete various functions.
I walked her through the process of reclaiming that unusable space (using
"Partion Commander 10"). After completion, the system reported the full
hard
drive space and things worked Ok until the first time that the system was
rebooted. That is when this blank screen with the dashes started. It is
almost as though the system is doing a "Checkdisk", but no prompts only
the
white dashes at the bottom of the screen. The system has "Nortons" anti
virus
and network protection.
The system seems to work OK once it is finished going through this long
blank screen process. We tried a system restore point, but to no avail. To
complicate things, she can not find her windows disks, however she does
have
the product code. (it is an OEM).

Thank you MPW

"Script" wrote:

Need more info:
Did it just start doing this?
Is it a new install?
How much RAM?
Did you add any hardware, or software?
Did you physically move the computer?
Details........

"MPW" wrote:

When rebooting my system, the screen goes blank for a very long time.
After a
few minutes, white dashes appear across the bottom of the screen and
very
slowly the dashes fill in and become a solid white horizontal line.
Then the
windows screen appears. The total process takes about 20 minutes to a
half
hour.
How can I fix this problem