Pc will not load/boot ??? Windows xp pro

I don't know why fixboot simply added your operating system to the list rather than creating a new one from scratch (after scanning for operating systems). You shouldn't need to type anything in, only use the arrow keys to highlight the desired operating system. Try highlighting/typing all three and see if Windows starts. If Windows does not start then your only option is the reinstall Windows using the installation disk.

 

Go ahead and run fixmbr again and press "Y". Don't worry, even though Microsoft puts that warning in, I've never heard of anyone damaging their partition table or mbr. The command simply overwrites your existing MBR with a generic Windows XP MBR. (it's only 512 bytes).

 

Okay, now I think I am getting confused.

When I followed your last set of steps you said to enter fixboot C: at the command prompt from the recovery section of the disc which I did and that said FIXBOOT IS WRITING A NEW BOOT SECTOR – NEW BOOT SECTOR WAS WRITTEN SUCCESSFULLY

Then to enter Fixmbr DeviceHardDisk0 which I did at the next command prompt but all I got was another command prompt.



I saw 3 different versions / options for windows after doing the steps before that for bootcfg /rebuild and having the next screen ask me to enter the load identifier and I initially just entered Windows XP Professional (but then realized that I was supposed to enter Windows XP Professional Edition as per the http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-Boot.Ini site and after doing that and restarting the pc and being on the ready to hit the down arrow key after the HP invent screen is when I saw that it listed Windows 3 times
Just as Windows XP Professional Edition
Windows XP Professional
Microsoft Windows XP Professional

but there was no option to select all 3 of them.

The question asking about yes/no/all was when I was doing the bootcfg / rebuild commands

I can restart the pc again and select another option besides the Microsoft Windows XP Professional one and see what happens but I can't highlight all 3 (at least I don't know how to do that)

Lisa

 

Okay will restart again and when in recovery will run the commands fixboot C: and then just fixmbr and hit y

be right back

 

Okay I ran it again and let the pc restart again but after the HP Invent screen I get that screen (that I have to be quick to even get access to) and then nothing. tried again highlighting each of the options for Windows XP professional with the same results and if I hit the F8 and select safe mode it still stalls at Mup.sys. I even tried last known good configuration but then nothing happens.

I also restarted pc and hit the f8 key till I got to the safe mode screen and tried last know good config as well as safe mode with same results

 

At this point, I think that reinstalling Windows XP is the best (and probably our only) option. Reinstalling Windows will should solve most, if not all, Windows booting problems. Performing a Windows XP reinstallation is pretty straightforward.

Insert the Windows XP CD into the drive
Restart your system
Boot from the CD

Once the initial prep work is complete, you'll see the Windows XP Setup screen (blue screen that has the word "settings" or "setup" in the title). Press [Enter] to launch the Windows XP Setup procedure. You'll see the license agreement page and you will need to press F8 to acknowledge that you agree. Setup will then search the hard disk looking for a previous installation of Windows XP (as it did when you entered the bootcfg command). When it finds the previous installation, you'll see a second Windows XP Setup screen

This screen will prompt you to press R to repair the selected installation or to press [Esc] to install a fresh copy of Windows XP. When the fresh OS is installed you should be able to boot Windows again. Don't forget to reinstall all of the Windows updates extending all the way back to when you purchased the computer. If you have "Automatic Windows Updates" turned ON, then your computer will do all of this for you (or at most prompt you for a decision about installing the updates).

 

I was just thinking that reinstalling Windows might just be easier.
Thanks Again!

Lisa

 

If the computer still won't boot up after the new install, then you definitely have a hardware problem (motherboard, CPU, memory stick, etc.). In that case, start a new thread in this forum (Hardware), indicating that Windows fails to boot after fresh install of Windows XP. That will signal to the all the hardware geeks that it's definitely a hardware problem. I don't know if you've ever posted in this forum before but our thread was very unusual in that it was just you and me for about 80 posts. Typically there about a dozen different people working together on one problem. Let me know what happens, either way.

Oh, and definitely scan your system with an antivirus program ASAP. If you don't have one then I can recommend some very good free programs. Just let me know in this thread.

 

Will do. After I started the fresh install of Windows and while waiting for it to do the formatting of the drive I realized that I had a backup that I could have tried installing first. I have Acronis True Image Home on this pc and it was installed on that pc as well and I did make a backup copy a few months ago before Mom ended up in the hospital.

If I had remembered that I could have tried using that backup copy to begin with! (I can't believe I didn't think of that). I make a backup of the laptop on a monthly basis but forgot about that pc. Oh Well!!!!

I have posted here before which is why I came here again - I have never been given bad advice and everyone has always been extremely helpful no matter what my question or problem was.

I am currently downloading Avast free Home on this pc to install on the desktop as soon as everything else is complete (before I do anything else on that pc). If you have a better recommendation please feel free to let me know.

Again, I can't possibly thank you enough for all your help and patience.

Lisa

 

Do you remember what type of backup you made with TrueImage? It would have been either simple file backup (file copy), where you copy individual files to another location without copying the important information related to your hard drive (MBR, hidden system files, partition tables, etc.). With disk imaging, you make a perfect byte for byte copy of your entire disk (at least the parts that hold data) and store that image on a different disk. If your system is later rendered unbootable for any reason (malware, file deletion, registry corruption, MBR destruction, etc.) you will be able to copy your stored disk image back onto your system disk, overwriting it entirely and thereby restoring your system to the exact state it was in when the disk image was created (clean, bootable, and well functioning).

Unless you did the latter type of backup (disk image), restoring individual file to a non-bootable drive is very unlikely to fix the boot problem. If on the other hand you performed a disk image backup, then you could have restored the computer to the state it was in when the disk image was created..However, in order to carry out this latter technique you would have had to have (earlier) created a boot disk containing a mini operating system plus the TrueImage recovery software. If you didn't create one of these disks then TrueImage disk imaging wouldn't have been able to help you either. Long story short, I don't think you missed any real opportunity by not remembering that you have the TrueImage program installed.

 

My ISP provides Norton360 for free so that's what I use. Were I to fend for myself I would probably also choose Avast, or perhaps BitDefender. In any case, Avast has scored very well in all of the head to head competitions that I've seen over the last 12 - 18 months. Since no single antivirus program is infallible, I always use a couple of stand-alone antimalware products in addition to the real-time scanner (Norton360 and Avast are real-time scanner, meaning that they are always on and monitoring your system) Stand-alone programs are those that only run when you deliberately launch them, run a scan, then shut them down. Lots of good programs in this category as well. I like the following:

Malwarebytes Anti-malware: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/malwarebytes_anti_malware.html
SUPERAntiSpyware: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/superantispyware_free.html
Emsisoft Emergency Kit: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/emsisoft_emergency_kit.html
Sophos Virus Removal Tool: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/sophos_virus_removal_tool.html

All are very easy to use and all are free. Just chose one and use it regularly. And don't forget to download new viral definitions every day. Some apps allow you to schedule this to happen automatically.

 

When I do the backups I always select the option to create a backup of the entire pc so that if I were to have to replace the hard drive (which I had to do with this laptop awhile back) all I would have to do is to follow the steps to install that backup so I guess that would be considered an image backup. I did get the fresh install of Windows XP completed.

I forgot how much I was going to have to do to get everything back to the way it was (fortunately I do have copies of the sp2 and sp3 on discs to install them).

Now I just have to remember how I set up that darn wireless network connection. I had such problems with that originally and I do have the original discs but when I was installing them I kept getting a message that it could not connect to the modem/router (whatever - sort of frustrated with myself right now). Anyway, I have a Linksys wireless router connected to the modem in the garage and I was using a usb wireless adapter connected to the pc to get my internet access.

Could I just get out that external hard drive with the back up on it and restore the pc with that even though I have done a fresh install. It sure would make it easier.

Lisa

 

If it's a disk image that you created, then YES. In order to find out whether it's an image backup you need to open TrueImage and look at the backup job that created the backup. See the attached image to see what my TrueImage backup jobs look like.

The upper job, entitled "CFiles" shows:

Type: File Backup

The lower job, entitled "C+System" is a different type:

Type: Disk Backup

If the job you used to create the backup in question is listed as a "Disk Backup" then your backup is a disk image that can be used to restore you computer to exactly the state it was in when you made the backup. Note that any changes you made to your system after the creation of that backup will not be reflected in the restored data. For instance, if you installed a program after you made the disk image, that program will not be on your computer once you restore the system with the image.

The other thing that you are going to need is a boot disk containing a mini operating system and a copy of the backup software. This is because disk images can only be restored in a pre-Windows boot-time environment. Do you know if you ever created a boot able disk for the TrueImage program? If not. you can create one now. Open TrueImage and click on the "Tools and Utilites" tab (It may have a different title if you have an older copy of the program). Look for the item entitled "Rescue Media Builder". Click on that and the program will take you through the steps of creating a bootable rescue disk.

Once you've done that, connect to the resuscitated computer the drive that holds the disk image. Make sure that Windows recognizes that drive after hooking it up. It should show up with it's own assigned drive letter in Explorer. Place the newly created rescue disk in the CD tray and close it. Then reboot the computer. The system should automatically boot to the Acronis boot-time environment and TrueImage will launch (you may need to bang on a key if you see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message). Now just navigate to the backed up disk image and then select which disk you want the image restored to. Then hit the Restore button (or similar) and the restoration should start.

Oh, take another look at the picture and you will see that there is a button entitled "Create bootable media", so you don't even need to select a tab.

Let me know if you run into any problems. Good Luck!

 

Oops, forgot the picture.

 

Hello Again,
Well it was a disk image and I did make the bootable rescue media/disk when I installed the program.

I turned on the pc and plugged in the seagate external hard drive and it was recognized by the computer so I put the cd into the drive and restarted the pc. It did show the screen for starting true image and then another screen popped up real quickly and then vanished and windows just started. So I tried again (3 different times with the same results) I created another bootable rescue media cd and again tried but I could not get it to load TrueImage. I was too tired to deal with it any more last night so I just shut down the computer and turned everything off.

This afternoon when I turned the computer on the Seagate is no longer being recognized by the computer. I tried plugging it into my laptop with the same results. It is listed in device manager and if I go to My Computer and right click for manage and click on disk management it is being shown but as unallocated space now. I can click to safely remove hardware and it is showing up there as well but I cannot access the backups that are on that drive now and it is not being shown in My Computer at all. Now I don't know what to do - between the fact that the darn external is now showing up as unallocated and the rescue disk is not loading I am at a loss. The Acronis True Image is 2011 and I have TrueImage 2009 on my laptop but even if I could read that darn drive now I don't know that the rescue disk for 2009 would work.

I have no idea why the drive could be read in both pc's last night but not today.

If I could just get the wireless network setup I wouldn't even care as much but I can't get that to setup so that it connects to the Linksys router that is located in the garage with the modem. (although it would be even nicer to be able to get that darn backup and use that - I almost made another copy of it last night and put it on the laptop ---- guess I should have now!)

Any suggestions on getting that backup off of that seagate Free Agent external hard drive???

Lisa

 

You just can't catch a break, can you? OK, try the following:

1. First, unhook the external drive from the USB port
2. Unplug the drive from it's power supply
3. Wait at least 30 seconds than plug it back in
4. Reattach the drive to the computer.
5. Check to see if the drive is recognized

If that doesn't work then click on Start Menu, open RUN box, type the following command:

diskmgmt.msc

Hit EnterThis will open the Disk Management program. Allow it a few seconds to scan for drives.
Right click on the Seagate drive icon and choose "Change drive letter" from the pop-up menu. Assign it a drive letter and then see if Explorer can recognize the drive and the data.

 

I had already tried that (first thing I did when I realized that it wasn't being recognized in fact). That isn't working because when I open up the Disk Management program it isn't even listed there with the rest of the drives.

Here is what I get when I open up the disk management and the second picture is what I get from Safely Remove Hardware.

The Disk 4 on the bottom is the seagate external that had been up top before and was in the my computer section. I can find it to be removed using the safely remove hardware section. If I click on the drive which now states unallocated space and right click on it there is the option for New Simple Volume and when I click on properties it states that the device is working properly. I'm guessing that if I click for New Simple Volume that any information on that drive (if it is possible to recover it) will be gone forever.

Lisa

 

From the Disk Management window

1. Right click on Disk 4
2. Choose Properties from menu
3. Click on Hardware tab
4. Select Drive
5. Click on Properties button
6. Click on Drivers tab
7. Click Update Driver
8. Reboot

See if Windows recognizes the drive. If it remains unrecognized - repeat steps 1 thru 6 then click on Uninstall Driver and reboot

If the Seagate drive is functional Windows will recognize it and install the newest drivers for the device.

 

Hey, what model is that Seagate external hard drive. I'll see if I can track down the latest drivers from Seagate site.

 

Hello Again!

Okay, it is a seagate 500GB Free Agent Desktop USB ST305004FDA1E1-RK (yes I still have the box!) P/N 9NF2AL-570

When I clicked on properties for that disk there is no hardware tab. Attached photos of info in tabs

Have to go and check on my parents shortly so will try to get back here before too long.

Thanks Again,

Lisa

 

Thanks for the specs on the drive.
When you right click on the unallocated drive, does the pop-up menu have an option to "initialize" disk?
Have you seen anything that shows the drive to be "online" or "offline"
Disk Management for WinXP and Win7 is different so I'm having to research out the XP solution to the unallocated drive.
I see on you pics that you do have a "Driver" tag on that tabbed dialog box
I'd like you to click on "Driver" and then click the "Update Driver" button.
Reboot
See if drive is identified by Windows
If no, click on the "Driver" tab again but this time click button labeled "Uninstall Drivers"
Reboot
See if drive is identified by Windows.

 

I couldn't find any drivers for your make and model.

AtlBo and Earthling were discussing this same issue with Mr. Magoo's internal hard drive in this same forum, although he has Windows 7 or 8. The thread is entitled "Reformat a failed cloned HDD". I think you should post a new thread in this forum titled something like "Unable to recover data from unallocated HDD" From everything I've read over the last hour, it is apparently a problem with your drive being "uninitialized" and not partitioned correctly. I'm a real novice in that department and the forum has so many really smart people. It's just not sensible for you and I to keep fumbling around in the dark. This thread just isn't attracting any new forum members. It's a dead thread. When that happens, and you still have your problem, it's advisable to start a new thread.

 

I'm back! Okay, I should have told you that for now I am working on that darn seagate while it is connected to my laptop which is running Vista Home Premium (since it moves a Whole Lot faster than the XP machine). When I couldn't see it any more on the XP machine I plugged it into the laptop to see if it was the XP machine but that was not the issue.

Anyway, I did as you suggested and that did not help at all. In fact the search for updated drivers told me that the drivers are up to date and then when I tried uninstalling them and restarting the pc the icon on the bottom that drivers were being installed did come up but it still cannot be seen in My Computer and is still in the same location in Disk Management. I also tried going to device manager and it is listed there are no exclamation marks next to it. I did try "scan for hardware changes" that did nothing and I also tried clicking uninstall and then scan for hardware changes with the same results.

Need to go up to my parents and check on them. Be back as soon as possible.

Lisa

 

Okay, thanks so Very Much for trying and for all the other help you have given me. I will start another thread as soon as I get back. Should I post that thread in this same section or another section?

Lisa (Thanks Again!!!!!)

 

Here's something from a different forum that gives step by step instructions to a member who is having the same problem as you (entire disk is declared to be unallocated, computer doesn't recognize drive)

"The key to your problem is what you highlighted in yellow in your Pic1.jpg. It says your 250 GB HDD (Disk 0) is "Not Initialized", and has no partition on it. You must first Initialize the disk, and then create at least one partition on it; kind of like a one-room house. We never format a physical disk, or assign a letter to the entire disk. But we can create a partition that includes the whole disk, assign it a letter, and format it. I think that is what you want to do with your 250 GB HDD: create a single 250 GB partition for the entire disk.
In Disk Management, click Help | Disk Management | Manage Disks | Initialize New
To initialize new disks
In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk.
In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize. You can select whether to use the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.
Note
The disk is initialized as a basic disk.
Additional considerations
New disks appear as Not Initialized. Before you can use a disk, you must first initialize it. If you start Disk Management after adding a disk, the Initialize Disk Wizard appears so you can initialize the disk.

Select the MBR partition style. After Initialization, right-click in the Unallocated space and choose New simple volume... Follow the wizard and accept the default size, which is the full amount available on the disk. Assign any "drive" letter you want, except for the ones already in use, of course. If you want to use D: or E:, you'll have to change the one that already uses that letter. There is no requirement that you assign letters in sequence, of course, so you might want to use X: or some other letter for this partition, and give it a label so that you will recognize this partition even if the letter changes. (You can also assign letters to your CD/DVD drives, so that they won't shift as you add or remove partitions.)"

When you get a chance, download the following free partition management program. You're going to need it to create a partition on your unallocated drive:

http://www.backup-utility.com/free-partition.html

 

Sorry about bombarding you with messages. On second thought DON'T download the app suggested in my last post. Download this one instead, it's better.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/parted_magic.html

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

That's not the right one either. It's this one.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/minitool_partition_wizard_home_edition.html

It is a dual purpose program: Partition manager and Data Recovery. Let's just hope you don't have to use the data recovery part of the program. Sorry for being such a sped today.

 

Hey Lisa, where did you go? At this point, neither hardware nor software causes have been ruled out so you could post your new message to either Software or Hardware forum (but not both).

 

Sorry about not being back online - the past few days have not been good (parents have had me running).

Fortunately I had already made copies of the SP2 and SP3 and put those onto a disc so I installed those first and then figured out how to get that darn computer hooked up for a wireless connection to the modem and router in the garage. Anyway, since both parents are having more health issues than usual and I wasn't sure just how much time I would have to mess with that seagate drive I just figured that I would simply set up the pc the way that I had it before and have be letting it get the updates again (after installing my anti-virus, spybot, malware bytes and turned on the Windows Firewall). I do still want to figure out what happened to that external hard drive and my backups but I figured I wasn't going to have the time and it wasn't urgent since there really wasn't anything personal on it anymore anyway. At least the desktop is running now so that should I need to use it for something it will be available.

I did start to do some searching for information on recovering the files that are on that external drive (primarily just because I am stubborn now - and if something like this ever happens again I know what to do) so I have not tried doing any sort of formatting or initializing of that drive until I do some more reading and researching.

Funny, but I did find that Partition Wizard Home Edition and did download it before I remember to check my emails this morning. I also found some other programs that I want to look into as well since some of them state that they can recover the files from drives that have crashed been reformatted, dead erased or other issues. One of those was here and it is called Puran File Recovery at http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/puran_file_recovery.html (also found a short video about it at https://www.facebook.com/puranutilities/posts/447484588678910.

I also found a few more that I thought I would research and some listed here at http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/data_recovery.html and http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/categories/data_recovery.html

Apparently there is also acronis disk director that has a trial version. I also found something called Recuva, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and some others that I found but I still need to look into them before doing anything at all. I am just sort of afraid that if I do format that drive anything on it might be lost forever unless I want to send it somewhere to see if they can recover the files and they aren't that important - since the backups are of a desktop that is just being kept on hand in case of an emergency. (and I haven't had much time for research or posting another thread yet - 2014 is not starting out well!)

Anyway, we are about to get hit with a snow storm this evening through tomorrow so I know that I will be able to do some research for the next couple of days without any more emergency doctors and hospital visits (unless by ambulance) so I am going to start doing more research on what happened to that drive and I will look into posting another thread as well - probably under hardware and if that is the wrong place I am sure that someone will let me know where it should be posted.

Again, I just can't thank you enough for absolutely everything that you have done for me and for keeping in touch even when I seemed to have gone AWOL.

Thanks!

Lisa

 

Wow kid, your life sounds like a continuous frenetic dash from one emergency to the next. Sorry that 2014 didn't start any better. There are lots of file recovery software apps available these days. The ones you run from Windows to recover data on an external drive are very easy to use. I like Recuva; it's fully functional and totally free. EaseUS has a 1 GB limit on the amount of data it allows you to recover (it then wants you to buy Pro version). Actually, I don't think you mentioned that the external hard drive had a problem. I don't know, I may be mixing this thread up with another similar thread.

In any case, don't worry about the computer stuff; This forum isn't going anywhere and neither am I. Just take care of the important stuff in your life and let this sit. Whenever you do have time, you can post the new thread. You can also Personal Message (PM) me anytime if you have questions. You can get to PM by clicking on "User CP" in upper left of your Major Geeks forums page.

 

Apparently, you aren't accepting PMs or aren't allowed to (see attached). I tried to PM you when we were both involved with another thread.

 

as for the private messages I did go to the link in the upper left corner "user cp" and I had to accept you as a friend so I am guessing that resolves the pm part (not sure if it does or if I need to change some other setting in my account for it to work).

You are so right about my life - but they are my parents (both in their 80's with multiple health issues and neither of them drive anymore) so I do what I can to help them out. Sometimes it drives me totally insane but that's life!

I am not sure why the recovery disc that was made with the Acronis True Image was not working but I just realized when I was making my monthly update for my laptop that all I had to do was to install the program again on the desktop and then open it up and go to the section for manage and restore and select the backup that was on that external hard drive and restore the pc to that backup. I don't think that I really needed to plug the external in and then restart the pc with the bootable rescue media. If I had just given things a bit more thought to begin with I might have remembered that I had those backups when the problems started on the old desktop (or at least remembered that I could just go into the Acronis program and click to restore a backup from there. (sometimes I wonder just where my head is!)

Anyway - that is too late now since for whatever reason the external hard drive was not recognized the next day. I did install the SP2 & 3 and am just letting the automatic updates take care of the rest. As I said I really didn't have anything important on that pc anyway (although it sure would have made life easier had I remembered those backups to begin with).

Still can't figure out why the seagate was no longer being recognized by the desktop or my laptop running Vista Home Premium the next day but I am going to try and see if I can recover the stuff that is/was on it freaked out on me. I did start a new thread titled "External Hard Drive suddenly showing as unallocated space -- http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=282708

I had started to look into Recuva this afternoon and then got another phone call from my mother and she needed something immediately from the store so I had to stop what I was doing and go run that errand for her (sure am glad that we are only about 5 miles away when there are emergencies). By the time I got back home it had started to snow and within about 15 minutes of being home the snow was really coming down and had already covered the roads.

I hope that I set that pm section up correctly - maybe you can let me know if it is now set up so that you can pm me (post from mdonah says that I am not accepting pm and aren't allowed to) - actually just checked the attached thumbnail from mdonah and it has to do with you and accepting a pm - I think)

Lisa

 

just figured out how to set it up so that I can accept and send private messages. I had to go in and edit my options by going into the my control panel and selecting edit options and from there clicking to allow private messaging

that has now been done.

Lisa

 

Exactly. But, I chose to add rustysavage to my contacts and sent a friend request which, hopefully, will resolve the issue.

 

Yes, you can burn the disk on your laptop, then use it on the troubled computer. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

 

Sorry mdonah, I don't know how things got changed from default settings. Now PM is set to "everybody" so it should be fixed.