Error Loading OS

A strange thing occurred with a modestly used Acer PC I have in the basement (Athlon 3500+ running XP MCE Sp2). Day before yesterday it was just sitting there turned on but dormant and yesterday morning I notice that it has rebooted, got to "Verifying DMI Post Data" followed by "Error Loading OS". I can't imagine the cause and I think it extremely unlikely malware is involved.

Searching about, I see various instances where this error crops up, usually when new hardware or OS has been installed. I find a number of approaches to dealing with it, some of which seem to compound the problem when tried.

I checked the bios settings and they look to be as they should. I'm ptretty sure that the Acer recovery discs, which are created when the machine is first started, are in fact a Ghost-type image file and do not afford much if anything in the way of diagnostic and repair tools. I have XP Home and Pro installation CDs, but not MCE.

There is nothing critical on the machine and I may be best off biting the bullet and doing the clean recovery, but all things being equal I'd prefer a clean surgical fix rather than reinstalling and reconfiguring everything. Any thoughts on diagnosis and cure would be appreciated.

 

Error loading OS.

If it rebooted suddenly, it's possible that a file transaction was interrupted, and a core file got corrupted.

Can you boot in safe mode?

 

Boot the computer with the Windows XP cd. When setup is has finished loading drivers and inspecting the computer hit enter to continue with setup. Hit F8 key to agree, then enter and it will search for installed versions of the OS.

When it finds the version highlight the partition that says MS windows XP and select the option to repair, usually it is done by hitting the "R" key. Follow the prompts thereafter.

 

Thanks guys.

No, its not getting that far. The Acer splash screen comes up with the options of getting into bios or bootup selection. If I do the latter, the message comes up instantly. Its clear to me that if I am to do anything, it has to be with external media, ie cd-rom. It has no floppy drive.

As to file transfers, the only thing I can think that could be involved is LiveUpdate for Norton Internet Security or possibly a Java update. This machine has had limited contact with the outside world, Yahoo, Netscape, and some stuff I've downloaded from known safe sites like Belarc.

I think your approach may be the same as another I came accross in my search for solutions, which my gut told me might be the best. I'm a bit paranoid because a lot of people have tried various MS remedies and ended up with a new 10 mb partition and a machine that still wouldn't boot.

I'm inclined to take a shot at this approach. Is there a preference as to use Home or Pro? Both are early versions, and I was wondering whether I should bite the bullet and create an SP2 slipstreamed installation disc. I've intended to do that and will eventually, but it seems to me a non-trivial task (I'm getting old ) that I would prefer to do without the pressure of an immediate need.

 

Its a much longer story, but I'll jump to the interesting part.

I booted up with a XP Home upgrade cd and did the setup/F8 thing. A screen came up showng 3 partiitions, an EISA Utilities, ACER (C:, NTFS), and ACERDATA (I:, FAT32). I highlighted ACER and pressed enter. I saw nothing about repair, and it looked like if I went any further it was going to do an install on that partition. I chickened out and exited via F3. Then the interesting part.

The machine rebooted with the XP install disc in place, but I did not respond the "press any key to boot from CD" prompt. A few seconds later the machine booted to my regular desktop and seemed to be in fine working condition. I then shut the pc down thinking a clean shutdown might restore the proper settings and fix things. Wrong- back to Error Loading OS.

However, I'm now back at my desktop using the same routine (it goes to Error Loading OS if no cd is present- you must ignore the "Press Any Key..." prompt to get to the desktop.) My strong inclination is to use System Restore and select a restore point a couple days before the machine went awry.

 

System Restore would have been nice had it worked. But I tried it with a 2 week old restore point and it had no effect. Back to square 1.

So I've got a system that reports Error Loading OS when my hard drive is selected as the first startup device, but boots up perfectly if the CDRom is selected as first device AND a CD is in the drive AND the prompt to press a key to boot from CD is ignored. I'm mystified.

 

Well what I would try is to allow the PC to boot from the CD. When it is booted open a DOS window (Start>Run>Cmd) Change drives in the DOS window to the Cd drive ie D: Then type sys c:
That should transfer the system files