Can't get into Windows. Need help.

Hi folks.
I had a bit of an issue with my laptop (Dell Inspiron 9300, Windows XP SP2) yesterday.

I have the computer propped on a box and use a remote keyboard so I can get around the terrible ergonomics of notebook computers.

The computer crashed while I was working and as I stood up I knocked it off the box. The computer was off when I came back so I turned it on, it reached the XP login screen, I clicked on my username and after a short hang the computer crashed again.

Upon turning on the machine now I am presented with the options to start in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, The most recent known configuration and to Start Normally.

Whatever option I choose I get the following error message before getting to the login screen.

Thankfully a while back I partially set up SuSe Linux on the same machine - and it's though this operating system that I'm accessing this forum now, but that doesn't help me with getting my work done. Unfortunately I don't have much of a clue about using Linux or accessing my Windows partition from it - I believe some things can be fixed this way, but I have no idea how to do it or if it would be suitable in this case.


I'm hoping someone can help me get this resolved quickly as I've got a ton to get finished in a hurry and I don't know where to start.


Thanks folks.

 

I suggest you try booting from the XP CD. Then at the Welcome to setup screen press "R" to repair.

 

or you could use ERD boot commander if you can find a copy of it, it's like a livecd of windows, most of the time (with the exception of a hardware issue) it will fix boot loops and BSODs at boot, also if you really need to access your windows partition try the command "mkdir /mnt/win" then "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/win" if you go into you / directory (the equivalent of the C: drive in windows, also called the root directory, not to be confused with /root though) double click on the mnt directory, then the win directory, and your windows C drive contents will be there, probably for read only though, also note that if you do the windows repair your linux installation WILL NOT WORK ANYMORE unless you reinstall it, because windows retakes control of the MBR and unless you edit the boot.ini you wont be able to boot to the linux partition anymore

 

Thanks for the notice that linux won't work after a repair. I'll make sure I have other ways of getting online before I go through with this.

Is there any way to back up something so I can get my linux installation working again after doing a Windows repair?


Also - is there anything I might be able to repair by accessing the windows partition from Linux? Being able to get a few things off my desktop will be handy - well, that is if a repair from the XP cd might erase them anyway - but if I could actually restore a file manually and get things working properly after that rather than losing things like my Linux install with a repair job it would be much better.

Thanks for your input people.

 

I've tried following Absolutexero's instructions for making /mnt/win in root.

When I execute "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/win though I get the following error "mount: special device /dev/hda1 does not exist"

Any ideas?

 

I'm about ready to give up on other options and go for an XP install disk repair.

If I do that, am I to expect that my installed programs and the likes will still be in place and usable, and any files kept on the desktop (bad habit) intact or would I expect to some/all a lot of that?

 

Bigshot,

Have a read of this and it will hopefully answer most of your questions.