[inthefrey]

XP Pro Service Pack 3 NTFS

Standard P4 setup w/Agp - nothing fancy here.
Tuesday = Thunderstorm.

Computer boots to MUP.sys then reboots. (I hate you POS!)
What is the CHKDSK switch? (/r /s ???)

It was probably was in the middle of some sort of WRITE operation when the power died.

Any help appreciated.

[srhoades]

If you just want to fix disk corruption chkdsk /p
If you want to wait around all day while it looks for bad sectors then /r

[kc8ykd]

This article:
http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mupdotsysXPhang.html

points towards faulty hardware.

So, What happens after we see the mup.sys driver load on a safe mode boot?

The windows OS is looking in the registry, executing PnP (Plug and pray) and ACPI routines checking the components and resources found.
It then starts these components possibly causing more draw on the power supply. Consider here the load of non-self-powered USB devices.

If there are any unrecoverable problems here, that will cause the system to hang and it will look the same. - The system hangs during a
safe mode boot after loading mup.sys!

The main reasons for this Windows XP or Win 2000 boot hang or alleged mup.sys issue are:

* Hard disk failure or corruption
* A corrupted registry or registry hive
* New hardware has been installed but not did not completely "Register or re-Register" correctly
* New hardware has been installed but it is faulty or failing
* The new hardware's driver or windows itself has been compromised (Disk data corruption or by a virus) or (rare) needs to be updated
* The power supply is marginal in output or failing (Common per user feedback)
* BIOS\ESCD\Motherboard chipset driver conflict with a component, its driver, or its registry data
* Existing hardware including the motherboard may have failed in a specific way but not catastrophically.

Another article I found said to boot from a windows xp cd, hit R for recovery, then execute the chkdsk /r command and reboot.

The /r switch has the computer examine the disk drive for bad sectors and try and relocate salvageable data from them to good sectors.

I've never heard of the /s switch in windows xp, can't find any documentation about it either :(
(the /p switch was invalid on my xp machine)

I would try the chkdsk /r, and if that doesn't work, start removing all the external devices and see if it boots, then start swapping hardware if it continues to malfunction.

considering it stopped working after a storm and power loss, I'd seriously consider the possibility of a hardware failure being the cause and would consider all the hardware in the machine suspect if the cause is a component failure.

[Blitzer]

Download and use Spinrite 6.0 from Gibson Research to fix the drive and recover the data.

[HKUSP45Css]

Unplug any USB devices except the keyboard. Boot to WinXP CD and hit "r" for recovery console.

chkdsk /r is what you want. If it's a corrupted file or sector chkdsk /r will fix it. It can be other things though.

[inthefrey]

UPDATE:

So, after banging my head against the proverbial brick wall for 2 weeks trying every confounded fix known to the XP intellectual community, I pulled the BIOS battery and shorted the pins. Battery was good so I replaced it. Fired that puppy up and it booted ONCE. - then back to the reboot-cycle. S#!T! Now I was pissed! Called Tiger Direct 500W pwr supply $20) Got it, hooked it up, boot cycle. S#!T!!! I was now almost apoplectic!

I was able to get the CHKDSK going and it found a few problems - fixed them - still boot-cycling.

The system has 2 drives - a SATA and an IDE. I went into the BIOS start config and, just for grins, changed the boot priority from the OS drive to the drive with just data on it; making the OS drive the 2nd drive in the pecking order. OMG! THE POS booted!!! I pulled the cable on the IDE drive. IT BOOTED AGAIN!
Now we're getting somwhere I thought! I plugged the IDE back in.
It booted just fine.

At this point, I was taking the victory and I ran clone drive and backed it up!

This morning the wife calls me in saying, " I was doing something and the screen just sent blank." I still had a green sync light on the monitor but no video. I power-button rebooted it and it started fine but, 2 minutes after booting, the screen went blank again. I had a spare vid/card in the drawer - plugged it in and it did the same thing about 2 minutes after boot.

SO, with 4 years on this P4P800 Delux motherboard, I'm putting a bullet in it this weekend (litteraly) and buying a new MB combo. Seems the lightning hit did too much damage. It put up a good fight but my patience with it is at an end.

At least it gave me the opportunity to make a backup before it finally died. I made a bunch of money with this rig. I'll miss it.
( about as long as it takes me to throw it in the trash!)