bootup lockup

[Klavias]

okay I have me a right propper computer problem.

half to most of the time that i start my computer it locks up. generaly at the windows xp blackscrene with the moving bar below, somtimes at the password screen, and rarely when autolaunch programs (spybot and antivir) are launching.

It never has problems once its started up.

whenever it happens and i reset it and it gives me the list of startup options (from being reset without propper shutdown), if i choose safe mode it never locks up. The problem has persisted through 3 reformats.

I have a 200gig hardrive that my computer never seems to want to recognize all of (i think this may be the root of the problem). i had another hard drive i thought was going bad before i got the new one and i theorized that the old one corrupted the new one (thats why i reformated it).

I think its a hardware issue but i'm not sure where or how to test it. my resident computer guru has poked at it a few times and gotten less than super results.

again, this has persisted in one form or anther through 3 reformats. this last time it started after my computer locked up while instaling drivers for a linksys wireless netcard (for when i'm at my girl's house).

anyone have any clue about what could be going on? now i just kinda leave my computer on for a week or so at a time (just to avoid the flakey startup, and for fear that at some point it'll eat my data and perma-lock).

-Klavias

[Tinnax]

If you have reformatted 3 times and the problem never occurs in safe-mode, then the chances are its one of the drivers that you are loading when -not- in safe mode. I'd check to see if you updated any drivers just prior to the crashes, wether they were video, sound, modem/network card, etc.

[Klavias]

i'll look into that tonight.

thanks for feedback, i'll letcha know if it works :)

[DocBobo]

When you press F8 before winXP boots up you get a menu with a few additional options. Select the option about "protocol startup" (or something similar, I use a german copy of WinXP, so I have to guess the correct text).

Windows then protocols which drivers were loaded into the file c:\windows\ntbtlog.txt. With a little luck the last entry in case of a crashed system is the guilty one. Or compare it with a good start and see what driver would be next to load in the list.

Better yet, just paste the txt-files for both a good and a bad start so we can all have a look.

[Areian Starfall]

In addition to what's already proposed, I would suggest youu take a look at your IDE/SATA cable.
I had a similar experience not too long ago where my computer suddenly wouldn't recognize one of my HardDrives. It kept insisting that it wasn't probaly formated even though I had just fomated it serveral time without getting any failures, and I had used it for some time without any crashes. It turnde out to be a bad IDE cable. The weird thing was that I had two HD's on the cable, but it was only one of them it wouldn't recognize :?

[Darasen]

The boot log should show the error.