curious issue on power loss

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deathtokoalas

hi.

i'm running an extremely cut down version of xp on what is now a very old machine (a PIII 500 with 1 gb of ram) in my living room, just to connect to youtube to watch videos when i'm eating. the power in the basement is pretty glitchy, so it sometimes crashes when it gets overloaded, causing a temporary power out.

it's set up on a scripted install, so reinstalling the os is very painless. but i really need to stress that it is cut down to the absolute bare minimum that sp3 will allow - install iso is around 50 mb, and a post-install script rips out about 80% of the remaining windows folder. the result is an extremely small footprint, which is required to allow enough resources on this machine to launch firefox and watch youtube (which should require minimal resources, but youtube is driving hardware sales like the rest of the industry). so i completely understand that the problem is probably something i ripped out, but i have good reasons for ripping it out and i'm just curious if somebody can help me identify it so i could possibly put it back in.

this only happens when the power cuts. i can turn the thing off, take it in and out of sleep and any other number of things without issue, but when the power cuts i get stuck in this loop....

it makes it all the way to the login screen - whether it's normal, last known or safe mode - and gets to the point where it's "playing logon sound" (i've got the messages displayed) before a message box pops up that says yes or no and has a red x on it. either option leads to it stating "logging on..." then throwing the message box back up. this loop is inescapable.

i've fixed it in the past by just reinstalling but i'd be curious as to any ideas anybody might have as to what's causing it. i have no reason to think it's a driver, ram, disk or other hardware issue. further, i've tested it extensively on a hard power off without a power outage and it just doesn't do it, so it doesn't seem to be an issue with not shutting down right. the power cut itself seems to be screwing it up somehow.

thoughts?
 
about the only thing i can think of is that the hard power off gives it a fraction of a second to close something that doesn't happen when the power is cut, and it's leaving something open that it then can't get at due to access restrictions. the initial image was an early domain image that i obtained through compaq (my dad gave it to me when he worked for them). i've kept it as the root image because it's one of the early images with the microsoft java, which has always been enough to prevent me from having to bog it down with the sun version. i'm all for preventing monopolies where it matters, but it would be nice if the securities people would let microsoft integrate this stuff more into the os. anyways, that means i've got all the domain controls in place in the image and have locked down EVERYTHING as a precaution. so, it may be an access violation, but i'm not getting an actual error message (because i removed them).

so, i've considered pulling the drive out and deleting the page file. does that make sense?
 
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your problems stem from your power outages, unless windows is shut down properly it can become corrupted.

any time the power goes out and there is an ungraceful shutdown you should run checkdisk

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265/en-us
How to perform checkdisk

if you do not have Recovery Console installed, then run from the start menu

go to start, run, type in cmd

in cmd type in chkdsk c: /r and press enter

type Y for yes and press enter

type exit and press enter

restart pc, allow checkdisk to finish and run again

this is a lengthy process depending on the size of your harddrive, the percentages will fluctuate, this is normal, you can view report in the event viewer.
go to start>run> and type in eventvwr.msc, click on the applications directory, and in the right hand panel choose winlogon.
=================

I have not run chkdsk on a really modified xp so am not sure how it will run but you do need to run it, and also look at these nlite forums on what should and should not be removed from a windows OS.

http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/89-nlite/

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/663...e-programs/?hl=+reinstall++removed++languages
 
i really don't have any reason to think it's the disk, though. a corrupted hard disk wouldn't be so predictable in a message box popping up every time the power goes out after multiple reinstalls, it would do all kinds of weird things, and the quick format on the reinstall wouldn't isolate and remove the bad sectors as well as it consistently does. i mean, it's happened about 5 times now. it's a file issue, i'm just hoping somebody can shed some light on what kind of file might be getting zapped and/or how the outage might be zapping it.
 
let's try and isolate it a little more carefully:

can anybody think of seeing a dialogue box come up on reboot *before the login process* with a "yes/no" option? loop or not, i can't even think of what it might be asking me to agree or disagree to.

i mean, it almost seems like a virus, except i know it isn't.
 
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chkdsk will also fix file system errors besides locating bad sectors, that is why you would use the /r parameter
===========

http://www.gegeek.com/documents/cheat_sheets/Windows XP Boot Process.pdf

https://www.inkling.com/read/dummie...th-system-files-and/standard-boot-process-for

go to the above links and read the process for boot in xp, On page 2, is where your issue originates, I believe

You can download bootvis and see if it will show what process is corrupted:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bootvis.html

===============

is this home or pro version of xp??

if pro look in group policy to see if a script is being performed:

http://uicad.cc.uic.edu/tech/gposcript/

=================
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ima...v&sa=X&ei=xrENVMWzLpatyASG-4HYBA&ved=0CDMQ7Ak

could not see a picture of your error at the above link
 
i still can't see how a file system issue would produce the same symptom over and over again after a quick format as the result of the power loss. and i'm actually getting all the way to the logon process before the box pops up. it's pro, but i've purposefully restricted access to group policies and cannot modify them. there may be something to this, but i'd need it identified quite clearly before i could determine a possible offline registry workaround. i should also point out that i cannot log in when it gets into this loop.

i think i'll just leave the thread here, hoping somebody recognizes something they've seen.
 
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just to update this...

the file system seems to be dumping something on a large external hard drive. the same problem is reproducible by taking the following steps:

1) install with hard drive plugged in
2) turn machine off
3) unplug hard drive
4) turn on machine

it simply won't get past that loop on the login screen, whether you put the drive back in or not.

i suspect it has to do with the fact that the external drive is 1 tb and the hard drive in the machine is 10 gb. somewhere along the way, windows is deciding it wants to use the space on the external. when you take that external away, it gets hopelessly confused and can't recover without a reinstall.

i don't want to experiment tonight, but i think i've found the cause of this, anyways.
 
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