Advanced help needed.

Last week, I got a bsod. This one indicated a corrupt sys file, something like “___mgr.sys missing or corrupt.” Anyway, I immediately did a system restore point and everything was fine for a few days. Now I got one bsod saying session5_initialization_failed. So, I rebooted. Then I got “NTLDR is missing.”
I rebooted many times and I get that same message now every time. I also tried to boot into safe mode now many times over and it will not let me. I looked up online that one of the steps to correcting the problem may be to restore the NTLDR file. So, I inserted my win xp recov cd and then hit “any key to boot from cd”. Then it takes me to the “setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration” screen…. And stalls. After the words disappear, it just stalls on the black screen. That’s the biggest problem right now. I cannot access my recov cd to even attempt to get into recovery console or anything.

Is there any way around this?

Note: I did not install any new software or make any BIOS changes, at all. However, just today, I did check bios and tried changing load order a few times now. I do not have a floppy drive and don’t use them. No system changes were made by me. All hardware seems to be in working order. I also did numerous tests on hard drive a couple days ago and all were good. I also checked for loose IDE connections, already.

 

of course. I hit F8 on reboot on many restarts now; won't let me. I am trying to use my recovery cd now, yes; won't let me.... just stalls out on the black screen I mentioned earlier.

 

Well...
I can honestly say that in my experience, what you describe ends up being a hardware problem.

Depending on how computer savvy you are, if you want to see if its the hard disk, unplug your machine, ground yourself, and unhook the IDE ribbon cable to it, or SATA cable.

Then try to boot to the CD. If it passes where it was stuck, then you know what has happened.

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That said, I think its more likely ram.

What you are probably seeing here is this.

Your registry was copied incorrectly from ram to hard disk on a shutdown/reboot. When it came back, you had an error. System restore would have undid that problem...until it happened again.

Bad ram also will not let you boot with ntldr errors. Files are copied to ram before being used, and if the ram is bad...well there ya go.

Bad ram will also prevent you from booting to the CD. Same reason--files are copied to ram first.

http://majorgeeks.com/Memtest86_d4226.html

Not sure it will help, due to the booting issue.

Both sticks rarely go bad if you have 2+.

Try removing them and seeing if one is bad?

 

thanks a lot. I might as well give it a try. I do have 2 sticks of RAM. So, perhaps that will save me some time and a headache... and money. I'll try using only 1 stick at a time later and see what it does. If no change then I'll try unplugging the HDD, but I don't think it's the HD. Although, it was a used one when I bought it. thanks for help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Let us know how you fare

 

I have to admit, I'm a bit impressed. After all these years of computing, no one's ever told me to just unhook the HDD...

I took out each RAM and tried them one by one. Just the same thing happened. So, I unhooked my HD and "voila." Started to install xp then. lol

At least now I know that all I need to do is go out and buy a HD. Unless, of course, I can fix it and recover all my data. I just don't see how that is possible now.

Well, thanks again everyone for the help.

 

Thanks for the update.

As for the hard drive, you should have seen the responses my supervisors monitoring me had when I told customers to do that back when I did MS support :-D

 

:-D :-D Excellent.

 

You might still be able to recover your data. I have a Symantec Recovery disk that has read many "dead" HDD's. It will allow you to copy the files to a USB drive or to another HDD connected at the time of bootup. Once you get your new drive, and installed OS, etc. I can see about getting you a recovery disk to try. If you have an appropraite USB drive, you could try to recover the files before installing a new HDD.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate it. Wish pc's were a bit easier to deal with at times. Anyway, a new acquaintance of mine was nice enough to come over and take a look at it. He works in IT, I think. He wasn't sure exactly what happened either. But, oddly enough, when he re-installed the drivers and updated the drivers for my computer, he rebooted and everything was fine. He theorized that it was probably the fact that my CPU got updated and was able to then "understand" the vid card drivers (or settings). So, the one thing he did differently was that he used windows updates for everything. I never use windows updates... don't really care much for it... but, after this episode, I think I'll start.