Explorer goes into Crash Loop after unexpected power failure

By im_to_hyper
in Microsoft (Windows)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Apprentice

im_to_hyper

Posted
Posted

Hey guys!

I haven't posted here in years, I don't think, but now I have no idea whats going on with my new aunt's new Windows Vista computer. Its an eMachines with Vista Home Premium on in it... 2GB RAM, AMD 64 processor, so a solid Vista system.

I was underneath the computer plugging in different peripherals and accidentally bumped the powerstrip. No problem, right? Wrong.

After turning it back on, the computer fails to boot. I get the start menu, the the desktop comes up, then I get a message that explorer has crashed, then it reloads, and the cycle repeats. Booting into Safe Mode gets the same result. It tells me to do harddisk error checking, but I can't even open up "Computer" to right-click on the harddrive icon!

I did manage, through the help dialog in safe mode, to boot msconfig, and i stopped mostly all the startup files from loading that are from 3rd party programs. Sadly, Explorer keeps crashing and re-loading no matter what I do. Even in Safe Mode, yes.

What was I doing when this happened? Installing iTunes, and copying music files over the network to this new computer. That's it.

Any help is greatly appreciated... thank you!!

Grand Master

episode

Posted
Posted

Boot from the restore disc or any Vista disc. Go through the option to go to the recovery console, and do fixboot and fixmbr

And maybe a chkdsk /f just to be sure

Edit: If its only three hours old, you want to do a restore. That way you don't have any residual problems from it. Since its new, don't you think it should be 100% perfect?

Experienced

RiverCampher

Posted
Posted
  im_to_hyper said:
Yes I have a restore disk... but this computer has literally been out of the box for 3 hours... there are no other options?

Try creating a new user? Possibly some damage has happened to the registry.. If it were me and only been up for 3 hours, I'd reinstall it rather than risk having an unstable OS as I load more stuff onto it.

Proficient

ChopSuey

Posted
Posted
  im_to_hyper said:
Yes I have a restore disk... but this computer has literally been out of the box for 3 hours... there are no other options?

It sounds like your hard drive was storing information at the time the power got shut off. If that happened, then there is a good chance that the some of data on your hard drive became corrupted (especially if the hard drives are hooked up in a RAID configuration). You can try using the restore option on your Windows Vista DVD in order to restore the system files (this way, you won't lose any data on your computer).

Here is a link that might help you:

Using System Restore from the Vista Windows Recovery Environment

Good luck!

Apprentice

im_to_hyper

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Eek sorry I meant three days... I've been on it for three hours, however. But yes, I suppose using the restore discs is the best option at this point in time. I will try the fixboot thing, since they already copied their files over from the old hard drive, and haven't backed anything up yet.

Will post results soon.

Apprentice

im_to_hyper

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks everyone who helped out... running chkdisk found and repaired one bad sector, which must have been the problem, but i also did the other two (fixmbr and fixboot) just to be sure!

Thanks again! Hopefully this issue will be fixed someday soon... I don't remember anything doing this in XP when a power failure happened.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • SpaceX Super Heavy and Starship updates

      By Xenon · Posted

      At least Starship Block 2 is consistent in failure.  They were lucky it was not the stack. That would have been really huge. 
    • Microsoft announces multi-year partnership with AMD for future of Xbox consoles and hardware

      By George P · Posted

      VR is dead on the PS at this rate, sales just aren't there. Way more VR push on the PC, even Sony knows this and that's why they added PC support to the PSVR.
    • Borderlands series, Rematch, Broken Arrow, and more get Nvidia GeForce NOW support

      By LoneWolfSL · Posted

      Borderlands series, Rematch, Broken Arrow, and more get Nvidia GeForce NOW support by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Another Nvidia GeForce NOW games update has arrived, meaning subscribers now have even more games to jump into via the cloud if they own a copy. The latest wave touts 13 more games, and that includes the Borderlands franchise from Gearbox, Remedy's brand-new cooperative shooter FBC: Firebreak, and more. With the fourth entry now on the way, for those who have yet to jump into Gearbox's wacky looter shooter universe, Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3, and even Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel are now a part of GeForce NOW. The Sifu developer's rule-less soccer experience, Rematch, has also been released to standard edition owners today. With the latest update, for owners of the game or PC Game Pass subscribers, it is also accessible via the cloud on GeForce NOW. Here are the games announced for the program this week: REMATCH (New release on Steam, Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, June 16) Broken Arrow (New release on Steam, June 19) Crime Simulator (New release on Steam, June 17) Date Everything! (New release on Steam, June 17) FBC: Firebreak (New release on Steam, Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, June 17) Lost in Random: The Eternal Die (New release on Steam, Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, June 17) Architect Life: A House Design Simulator (New release on Steam, June 19) Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced (Steam) Borderlands 2 (Steam, Epic Games Store) Borderlands 3 (Steam, Epic Games Store) Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Steam, Epic Games Store) METAL EDEN Demo (Steam) Torque Drift 2 (Epic Games Store) As always though, keep in mind that unlike subscription services like Game Pass, a copy of a game must be owned by the GeForce NOW member (or at least have a license via PC Game Pass) to start playing via Nvidia's cloud servers.
    • Microsoft announces multi-year partnership with AMD for future of Xbox consoles and hardware

      By MikeK13 · Posted

      WHAT? First of all, Azure, literally, runs on THE LINUX KERNEL. I know, right? Windows is easier to develop drivers? This must be the joke of the century! Developing drivers on Linux, you can interact with low level implementation straight to the core. You can build and test them with standard tools like GCC and Make, no need for a full blown IDE or SDKs, only a kernel header and a Makefile. You can load/unload drivers dynamically, without rebooting, which makes debugging MUCH easier. You don't need to sign drivers, unlike Windows, even for local testing. And a ton of other conveniences. "There is no way a Linux distribution can compete against Windows". Literally, SteamOS competes against Windows on handhelds, playing games WRITTEN for Windows, BETTER than Windows. "DirectX is the most powerful API"? Really? Vulkan provides more low level control, less overhead, scales better with more threads, it's cross platform and extensible. How, exactly, is "DirectX the most powerful API"?
    • Microsoft announces multi-year partnership with AMD for future of Xbox consoles and hardware

      By George P · Posted

      It's easier for the console market to pull in more revenue when they're prices are higher compared to the PC where games often come out cheaper than their console versions or go on sale quicker. Having said that, I'm not going to be paying $70 or $80 for a game, regardless of the platform it's on. Revenue aside, because raising prices on consoles skew things when the prices on the PC often stay around the same levels, it's been shown that the PC market is growing while the console market is overall flat. PC will pass consoles soon dropping them into 3rd place. And the PS5 being on track to pass the PS4 doesn't say much, if the console market was actually still growing Sony would've passed the PS2 as it's best selling console with the PS3, and the PS4 would've outsold both and so on. That's not happening. It took Nintendo to release a totally different hybrid system with the Switch to inject some new life into the "console" market. Even then it's pushed as a handheld first and the majority who buy it do so because it's portable and at a good price.

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      MikeK13 earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      OHI Accounting earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      OHI Accounting earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      Thornskade earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      Higante88 earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      716
    2. 2
      ATLien_0
      273
    3. 3
      Michael Scrip
      203
    4. 4
      +FloatingFatMan
      182
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      128
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!