Xp embeded not booting fully. Any ideas?

[Trinham Technologies]

Last night I was dealing with an embeded XP system that randomly stopped booting all the way. It would go as far as to show the Windows XP logo then the screen goes black and thats it.
Then the screen will come up with no signal. Nothing works to get a response except switching power off to restart it.

It can boot to safe mode fine, but I cant see anything in the loggs that would give me any idea why it wont boot normally.

I havent delt with embeded systems before so I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on what could be causing it.

 

[jzukerman]

Almost sounds like the video resolution is wrong for the monitor connected to it. Have you tried another monitor? Or try removing the video card in safe mode then boot into normal mode. Windows should use a standard resolution while it tries to install the video card again.

 

[Trinham Technologies]

Yea tried another monitor but it did the same thing. Will try uninstalling vidoe card.

 

[Trinham Technologies]

So I just disabled the display devices in device manager and that seem to let it boot normally but with 640x480 res. If I try reabling them and adjusting the res i end up with the same problem again.

I was apprehensive about unistalling and reinstalling it incase it couldnt find the driver. It has limited internet connection. Only via a usb mobile data dongle, which they have only just toped up.

I dont understand what would have caused this and why wont it let me fix it.

 

[Markverhyden]

Was the other monitor the same type (resolution) as the original? I agree with jzukerman that it sounds like a video resolution problem. Boot into safe mode, delete the display adapter, then reboot and see what happens.

 

[jzukerman]

So I just disabled the display devices in device manager and that seem to let it boot normally but with 640x480 res. If I try reabling them and adjusting the res i end up with the same problem again.

I was apprehensive about unistalling and reinstalling it incase it couldnt find the driver. It has limited internet connection. Only via a usb mobile data dongle, which they have only just toped up.

I dont understand what would have caused this and why wont it let me fix it.

Grab the PCI ID from the computer and download the video driver. Most drivers are pretty damn small like less than 20MB, especially on Embedded systems, where disk space is usually at a premium and don't need anything unnecessary running in the background.