This 32 bit SP2 HP tower refuses to boot normally - just a constant view of the splash screen with the green horizontal bar. None of the other F8 options do a thing, so I put in a Vista DVD and rebooted.
I got the 'Press any key' followed by the loading of the files. When the white bar got to 100%, the screen went dark for at least a minute. Finally the cursor (moveable) appeared. And nothing else happened. After an hour I tried another disk - the time a factory Dell SP1. And I got the exact same scenario as with the previous DVD, ending with the white cursor pointer on a black screen.
Same thing with a Spotmau Bootsuite disk. I tried a BitDefender boot DVD - it brought up the initial screen where the language is selected, and shows the phrase 'The fun begins in 30 seconds', followed by a countdown to 0. When it hits 0 I get the 'Windows could not start. Please insert your Vista disk, yadd yadda, yadda'.
The only thing I can boot from is a Hirens Boot CD. From there I ran a Western Digital HDD test and it passed. It also passed 2 other hard drive tests on Hirens.
Since I've had identical boot problems using 3 different DVDs, I can't believe that it's the disks.
Anybody have some ideas or suggestions?
I got the 'Press any key' followed by the loading of the files. When the white bar got to 100%, the screen went dark for at least a minute. Finally the cursor (moveable) appeared. And nothing else happened. After an hour I tried another disk - the time a factory Dell SP1. And I got the exact same scenario as with the previous DVD, ending with the white cursor pointer on a black screen.
Same thing with a Spotmau Bootsuite disk. I tried a BitDefender boot DVD - it brought up the initial screen where the language is selected, and shows the phrase 'The fun begins in 30 seconds', followed by a countdown to 0. When it hits 0 I get the 'Windows could not start. Please insert your Vista disk, yadd yadda, yadda'.
The only thing I can boot from is a Hirens Boot CD. From there I ran a Western Digital HDD test and it passed. It also passed 2 other hard drive tests on Hirens.
Since I've had identical boot problems using 3 different DVDs, I can't believe that it's the disks.
Anybody have some ideas or suggestions?