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A power failure killed my PSU in a Windows XP machine. It would not power up. It is an older HP pavillion m7590n.

I replaced the PSU and it now powers up, goes to the windows XP splash screen for about 2 seconds, then goes to blue screen of death for about 1/4 to 1/2 of a second, and restarts. It stays in this continual loop.

I have unhooked all additional cards/drives/etc except the video card and primary hard drive. Still same issue occurs.

The blue screen doesn't stay on the screen long enough before it restarts. I tried to find the setting in the bios for this, but don't see anything. I can get into BIOS successfully, and also I can get into programs on the "system restore partition" e.g. PC doctor utility (all tests complete successfully).

EDIT - I was able to disable automatic restart on system failure so that I could see the blue screen. It reads as follows:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Again, all tests (including disk tests) within PC Doctor completed successfully. Not sure what to try next and looking for help.

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  • The BSOD should also display a "stop code" and register values after the text you quoted. What is the stop code?
    – sawdust
    Commented Jul 10, 2013 at 0:17
  • "goes to the windows XP splash screen for about 2 seconds" -- which screen are you referring to? The one with the black background or the blue background?
    – sawdust
    Commented Jul 10, 2013 at 0:21
  • @sawdust, I am in the middle of a chkdsk /r, so I will get the stop code once that has completed, and post it here. As for the "splash screen", it is the one with the black background.
    – GWR
    Commented Jul 10, 2013 at 0:31

2 Answers 2

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If you can enter in the System Restore Partition and pass de PC Doctor Utility, your PC is OK. If you have a power failure it's possible that Windows XP files are corrupted. You should put the hard drive in another computer and try to recover the most important files and format it.

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  • Thanks for the response. I am hoping to avoid a clean install if possible. Will wait a little to see if other suggestions are forthcoming.
    – GWR
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 23:12
  • Also you can try to repair your Windows XP installation with the original CD/DVD.
    – ferminxts
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 23:20
  • updated question with the blue screen info...
    – GWR
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 23:25
  • BTW - thanks for your comments, they helped point me in the right direction.
    – GWR
    Commented Jul 11, 2013 at 13:32
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Here was the solution:

As noted above, i disabled reboot after system error by pressing F8 at startup and choosing that as an option. This allowed me to read the blue screen.

The blue screen said to run chkdsk, so i did so. This was done by using a recovery disk and choosing recovery console with command line. at the command line, I ran chkdsk c: /r. It took all night to complete, and the results said it found and successfully recovered erroneous clusters.

Reboot at this point and it worked beautifully. Shut down properly, then re-attached all other disks, drives, and PCIe cards. Boot up and it worked perfectly.

Since some disk sectors were bad and were recovered, a few windows files were corrupted. I had to invoke a windows repair from the recovery disks, then install XP SP3 again, and after that everything was back to normal.

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