Cyclic reboot in Win XP Pro after CMOS battery change.

[bph]

Had to change the CMOS battery in my Dell Dimension 8400 this morning, running XP Pro. Now the system only boots up to the Windows start-up screen before rebooting and repeating the process. If I attempt to boot in Safe Mode it does the same. Setting default settings in BIOS does not help.

It had been warning me for a couple of months that the battery was low, and only last week I checked through the BIOS settings and noted that everything was in default except Integrated Audio (Off) and Hyperthreading (On). I also made a Clonezilla clone of the C drive, but I'm reluctant to try it because if the problem is in BIOS it won't do any good, and I'll lose everything I have done since.

I have a very distant recollection that I may have had this problem before, possibly on this machine, and that I fixed it with an "Ultimate Boot CD Win", but this and my Windows installation CD are at home (I'm not, and won't be for a week or so).

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, and any way I could try to fix it? Could the BIOS corrupt anything on the HD?

Thanks,

Steve.

 

[bph]

Correction:

I found I DO have the "Ultimate Boot CD" but apart from the chkdisk utility, none of the programs seem to be able to see any of my NTFS drives (including C: ) and can only see a FAT32 drive, so I haven't been able do do much with it. I also have my XP Pro installation CD.

There is a setting in the BIOS I might not have checked, "SATA Operation". The options are RAID Autodetect / AHCI, RAID Autodetect /ATA, RAID On, and Combination. The default is RAID Autodetect / AHCI. When I thought of trying it on RAID Autodetect /ATA it gave dire warnings that it may "prevent your operating system from booting or require a reinstall", so I backed off. Does it mean I could actually risk damaging the OS if I set it wrong, or is it just saying that it might not work? Should I try changing from the default?

 

[bph]

I changed SATA operation to RAID Autodetect /ATA and it has booted normally, so I think the BIOS warning message was a bit over-dramatic! Obviously it was set this way when I installed the OS (a LONG time ago), and I did not make a very good job of noting the BIOS settings last week.

Panic over!

 

[MidnightShadow]

Glad you got it solved! To answer your question, no, your BIOS settings should not make any changes to the hard drive with what you were encountering. Typically, if you choose the wrong setting in the BIOS, it just won't boot properly. Anyhow, glad you got it figured out! Been a busy morning here, so I hadn't had a chance to jump on here until just now.

 

[bph]

Thanks for the reply. It had to be something simple didn't it!

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind I seem to remember some question about which setting to use when I installed the OS, and from searches today it seems a bit of a fiddle to get AHCI working with XP. The installation was quite a few years ago, and the machine has been lying idle for most of the time.

 

[MidnightShadow]

Thanks for the reply. It had to be something simple didn't it!

It usually does!

So, I wouldn't be me if I didn't enter my usual disclaimer here: If you can upgrade away from Windows XP, you should REALLY do so! I'm sure you already know all of the reasons why. If not, I'd be happy to go into it but I don't want to waste your time otherwise.

Unless you're part of the $9.1 Million contract with the Navy to pay for ongoing support for Microsoft Windows XP...