Here's the problem-
I've got an Optiplex 740 running Windows XP SP3, and it's joined to a domain– after you power it on, it goes through POST, goes thru the Windows XP logo booting screen… the screen blanks… mouse pointer shows up…
then NOTHING. You can move the mouse, but there's no window that prompts you to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to login… nothing.
Tried rebooting in safe mode, same thing– just get a mouse pointer, no prompts for user login information. Safe mode with command prompt? Nope, just get a mouse pointer.
I grabbed the Windows XP SP3 CD to try a windows recovery, but it keeps bluescreening during the attempt to enter the recovery console.
24 hours of Memtest+ show no apparent issues with the RAM.
How can I proceed in getting this thing to accept user login again?
EDIT:
Three hours of troubleshooting later, we just queued up the bootable DVD with the XP image from Dell ImageDirect. There comes a point where you just have to say move on…
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. My best guess is corrupted sectors on the hard drive.
Best Answer
Somehow windows seems to be broken. This could happen at several levels. Lowest is the hard disk. Since it boots somewhat the disk functions mechanically.
Next is the surface of the hard disk. This is my best guess where the problem is. The densities modern HD are so high they depend on features of the disk controller to do a lot of error correction. There is a level of degradation of the surface that is less than total failure but not consistently readable. Tools that correct this must boot from another device to run (USB stick, CD, floppy). The one I use is Spinrite (www.grc.com). Yes it cost money, no there is no demo, but there is a money back guarantee.
Drives at this level can be brought back into useful service depending on the number of errors. Considering how cheap hard drives are, if it does bring it back and you don't trust the drive change it.
Next level is window NTFS and OS themselves. NTFS could be detecting the errors of the level below but not fix it. Once Spinrite has forced drive to move the "bad" sector NTFS may just fix the rest.
If not there are several tools that work once you have bootable OS going. I rarely use them because I have had so much success at the levels below. Get the opinion of those people that us them.