SoulfulScotsman

Hi Nev, Thanks for your help. The reason I didn't get back to you beforehand is because the PC seems to have sorted itself out! I'm sure this must've happened last time too, as I don't remember doing anything to rectify it. Why a PC would start playing up after 2 weeks of non-use and then gradually get better is beyond me, but the main thing is that it's working again! Thanks again for your help though, Stephen H

An update to my original post: Earlier today the PC booted up fine and was perfectly useable. Thankfully this meant I was able to backup all my recent files onto my portable HDD, so I'm not going to lose anything. Tonight, on 1st attempt of bootup the BIOS has stopped at "Verifying DMI Pool Data...." On the 2nd attempt, Windows launched as far as the Windows XP launch screen with progress bar, but froze just before it gave me the User Profile selection screen - so I had just a black screen with cursor in the middle - mouse and keyboard wouldn't respond, HDD activity light flashing every second. On the 3rd attempt, the PC powered up for a second, stopped, then started again a few seconds later. It gave me the Windows Safe Mode selection screen, where I selected "Last Known Good Configuration". Windows started to load, but then just froze on a black screen. The PC then rebooted itself, and brought me back to the Safe Mode selection screen. I selected "Load Windows normally", which it did up to the same point of the 2nd attempt - black screen and cursor. This time no HDD activity light. It's something different every time. Three attempts is enough for one night. Anyone with any suggestions?! Thanks again, Stephen H

Ahh, sorry - my mistake. Thanks for keeping me right :) Stephen H

PC won't boot up after 2 week holiday Hi all, So I returned from a 2 week holiday this morning, and after a few hours kip tried to boot up my PC. Bear with me, as I was still a bit tired so some of exactly what happened was a bit hazy! Basically, the first error was "Checksum error - Defaults loaded". (The CMOS battery is fairly new but it may well need replaced). I hit F1 to continue, and Windows started to load normally. Shortly after it was loading up my profile, I got the blue screen of death. The ultimate error was a problem with "ialmrnt5", with the PC getting into a constant loop, and performing a dump of physical memory. I've tried to reboot a few more times since then, and had a succession of beeps and error messages, or something other than the PC starting up, fan spinning etc, nothing on the monitor and no hard drive action. I've also just tried to load in Safe Mode, and it instantly gave me what looks like a list of registry entries (all starting with "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\Syste m32) and a constant hard-drive activity light. Now, I've had this happen before with the same PC about 3 years ago, again after it hadn't been used for a period of around 2 weeks. How can that be? For the life of me, I can't remember what I did to resolve it last time. I think I may have given in and just reformatted. Don't want to do that this time though - far too much stuff on there that I can't afford to lose, so I would really appreciate if someone can tell me some of the things I should be checking to try and resolve this. How common is it for a PC to play up after a period of inactivity, and why?! Thanks in advance guys, Stephen H

Hi all, So I returned from a 2 week holiday this morning, and after a few hours kip tried to boot up my PC. Bear with me, as I was still a bit tired so some of exactly what happened was a bit hazy! Basically, the first error was "Checksum error - Defaults loaded". (The CMOS battery is fairly new but it may well need replaced). I hit F1 to continue, and Windows started to load normally. Shortly after it was loading up my profile, I got the blue screen of death. The ultimate error was a problem with "ialmrnt5", with the PC getting into a constant loop, and performing a dump of physical memory. I've tried to reboot a few more times since then, and had a succession of beeps and error messages, or something other than the PC starting up, fan spinning etc, nothing on the monitor and no hard drive action. I've also just tried to load in Safe Mode, and it instantly gave me what looks like a list of registry entries (all starting with "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\System32) and a constant hard-drive activity light. Now, I've had this happen before with the same PC about 3 years ago, again after it hadn't been used for a period of around 2 weeks. How can that be? For the life of me, I can't remember what I did to resolve it last time. I think I may have given in and just reformatted. Don't want to do that this time though - far too much stuff on there that I can't afford to lose, so I would really appreciate if someone can tell me some of the things I should be checking to try and resolve this. How common is it for a PC to play up after a period of inactivity, and why?! Thanks in advance guys, Stephen H