Recovery - Windows XP at start-up

My wife's ThinkPad (G41) with XP failed to load Windows on start-up.

Can't get it to come up in Normal Mode, Safe Mode or Previous Windows Mode when I select any of the alternate start-up selections. Just loops back the to the Windows start-up screen.

I can't be the first one to have this happen, but a search of previous posts didn't turn up anything that applied.

Windows XP start-up appears to have 'lost' the location of any of the Windows O/S on the hard drive.

If I take it to a repair facility can I expect that they have software they can use to recover the installed Windows XP?

Or is the only solution to reformat the C: drive and reload Windows XP thereby losing all her files - the important one being her Thunderbird e-mail address book (I know- she should have backed-up that file, if only on paper).

Appreciate any suggestions (help) in solving this problem before I have to commit O/S suicide.

Thanks

 

Search turns up these directions posted:

 

Thanks plodr. I appreciate your taking the time to give me some help.

Unfortunately, with a ThinkPad laptop, you don't get a copy of XP on CDs. It's a factory load (on a protected portion of the hard drive) with a 'Restore' option that allows you to do a reload (reformat your C: drive and re-install XP).

There is an advertisement on this forum page for "Corrupted Windows Repair"
www.BootandRescueCD.com.

Can anyone tell me if that would be a solution for my situation?

 

Why don't you try this: upon powering up the PC, start pressing the F8 key until you see a Windows Boot Options menu. Select "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure". Now when you boot and Windows decides to crash, it will stop on a blue screen with an error message and a code number like 0x0000007E (0x000000ED, and a bunch more) and hopefully a filename will be listed also. This screen has been flashing by too fast for you to see it. When this blue screen of death appears (also called the BSOD) write down the error number and the message, and any file names and post them here.

 

Agreed. also note if you have SP2, or not. You should see the option that dlb mentioned if you have SP2. If you do have SP2, and dont see that, please let us know.

A repair right out of the gate is a bad idea.

 

Thanks. The BSOD tells me that I have - UNMOUNTABLE _BOOT_VOLUME

STOP: 0X000000ED (0X812BE1A8,0XC0000006,0X00000000,0X00000000)

 

You need an xp cd to fix this. You must boot to the recovery console and run chkdsk /r.

 

Thanks.

Now I have to figure out how to get an XP cd.

All my machines have come with Windows already loaded and no XP cds.

Will that program "Spotmau PowerSuite Home 2008" provide me with the means to boot to the recovery console and run chkdsk /r?

 

I borrowed a XP cd from my grandson and did as instructed by plodr and Adrynalyne.

Bottom line - It worked!

My wife's ThinkPad XP O/S is working and all her files were retained. Crisis averted.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

PS I installed a Karen's Replicator program on her machine and set it up to copy her e-mail address book to a back-up floppy.

 

I'll be forever grateful for the help provided in recovering my wife's XP O/S, but (ah...the big but) I'm having a few problems with the 'recovered' Windows XP.

A minor one and a major one.

Minor - A two different points in the loading (boot-up) of XP, this message appears - "Windows/system32/sfc_os.dll is not a valid Windows image. Check this against your installation diskette."

Clicking on OK makes the message go away and XP appears to be running as before.

Major problem. It dropped the Printer (discovered when my wife tried to print a recipe she found on the Food Channel web site).

When I tried to Add a Printer, I got a message that told me the printer spool was not available and it would not let me go any further with that proceedure, which as I understand it, is the linking of a driver for the printer.

So, unless I can find a way to 'fix' this condition, I'm going to have to re-install Windows XP.

Luckily, I was able to attach a portable hard drive via the USB (although XP told me that it was unable to install it, more than once when I by-passed the Wizard and warnings that I would implode any minute). So, I've copied off all my wife's files and will be able to re-construct her system if I have to re-intall Windows XP.

Anyone care to take a shot at fixing the 'unavailable printer spool' problem before I have to shoot this PC?

PS I was able to highlight and copy (to the clipboard) her recipe and write to a text editor and then that file to the A drive floppy. I then moved the floppy to my system and was able to print it out for her. Ducked that bullet!

 

Do you mean print spooler service not running?
If so, you need to turn it on.
a. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
b. Expand Services and Applications, and then click Services.
c. In the details pane, right-click the Print Spooler service, and then click Start
d. Exit Computer Management.

 

plodr,

Excuse me for not replying to your post sooner. I was relying on the MajorGeeks e-mail notification feature that seems to have stopped working (again).

So, I just happened to check the forum, in the off chance that such was the case and it was.

Anyway, I printed out your instructions, so I wouldn't have to remember, and took them to my wife's machine and did exactly as you indicated (twice).

Didn't work.

I noticed when I went through it the second time that there was a list to right that included a Status column. It said 'Started' in that column.

Yet, when I went back to Control Panel, Printers & Faxes, Add New Printer, I got the same message print spooler service not running. Argh!

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet (next week maybe) and shoot this sucker and do a complete re-install of the Windows XP.

Thanks for you help even though it appears only to have confirmed that this turkey can't be totally fixed.

To paraphrase (I believe it was Abe Lincoln - "You can fool some versions of Windows all of the time and you can fool all versions of Windows some of the time, but you can't fool all version of Windows all of the time."

 

All the threads I've read about the same problem, usually ended up with the person doing a reinstall of windows. One or two people restored the computer to an earlier date but in your case, I don't think that is an option. Just to be sure, check in Programs/Accessories/System Tools and see if perhaps by dumb luck there is a restore date from December 2007.
If not, take off your wife's files then do the factory restore which, unfortunately, will take the Thinkpad back to the day it was new.

 

Yes, plodr - you are undoubtedly correct.

I have been able to do a restore back to 10 December and then when nothing that was broken changed, I went back to 6 December. Both restores were ineffective. All they did was make it necessary to do a big up-date with AVG.

The damn thing (XP) acts like it had a lobotomy.

Whenever I turn on the USB attached hard drive (that I'm using to rescue files) XP says it can't find the drive, blah, blah and therefore the drive is unavailable.

When I go to My Computer, there it is, shown as a removable storage device and it reads the file index with no problem. I think I've saved everything I need to, but I'm delaying the suicide move as long as I can. I remembered, just last night, that her iPod files are stored deep inside Documents and Settings. I couldn't do an entire copy of that folder, since there are files in it that XP is using, so it stops the copy. (I hate Windows). I get so frustrated with it telling me what I can do, can't do and must do!

Anyway thanks for your help. You and Adrynalyne have saved about 90% of the grief that could have occurred if I had been unable to get XP running again.

 

You should never have to reinstall an OS for printer issues.

Ever.

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

Try this, then reinstall your printer drivers.

 

Thanks, Adrynalyne

I got the instructions and they included a comment that if I had a Lexmark printer I would have to do some additional things which involved changing the XP Registry.

Of course, my wife's printer is a Lexmark.

Scary (messing with the Registry), so I'm going to ponder it before pressing ahead.

Roseanne Roseannadana was right when she said: "It's always something, if not one thing then another."

I think Roseanne married Murphy.

 

Bad news! "You should never have to reinstall an OS for printer issues."

Never is a long time, particularly "never, ever."

I did all the things indicated in the

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

article, which basically boiled down to using the Command Prompt to execute these two commands - net stop spooler, net start spooler.

When I entered those commands the first one replied with "the spooler service is not running" and the second one replied "spooler service started"

The second one lied.

I exited the Command Prompt and went to Add Printer and got the same error message "spooler service is not running"

I did that twice. Neither time did I kick the machine, although I was sorely tempted.

BTW, during the re-install of the printer driver (from Cd), while it was cranking away, it notified me that the spooler service was not running and asked me if I wanted to start it. I clicked on OK (or yes, can't remember which) and it came back in a couple of seconds and told me that it had started the spooler service.

It lied also.

Ain't fixing XP fun.

 

Adrynalyne,

Apparently your comment - "You should never (ever) have to reinstall an OS for printer issues." still holds. I should have known not to doubt you.

This morning I recovered (as far as I can tell at this point) all the XP function on my wife's ThinkPad without having to commit O/S suicide and re-load the original factory version of XP.

I am a happy camper.

In my post on 01/04 I said -

"Minor (problem) - A two different points in the loading (boot-up) of XP, this message appears - "Windows/system32/sfc_os.dll is not a valid Windows image. Check this against your installation diskette."

And that a major problem was losing the printer (spooler service not running).

I got that wrong. It was the sfc_os.dll file that was the major problem.

Yesterday I opened that file and noticed that although the size and date were the same many of the lines of code were different from that of the same file from my running XP system, beginning with the first line.

This morning, on the advice of a young geek I know, I copied that file from my own XP system into my wife's XP system and re-booted.

The error messages did not appear and when XP fully loaded I saw that the Lexmark printer was installed and working (I did a test print).

Many thanks to all that helped. plodr, Adrynalyne and dlb.