Windows XP Errors

Greetings,

I have a new laptop that's two weeks old and i woke up this morning, powered it up and bam, it stalls at the windows splash screen.

It's a Pentium 4 3.6 Laptop
2gb RAM
2 -60gb HD RAID 0
Win XP Pro

I can boot up using my Win CD. Get to the recovery console. Tech support for the laptop keeps telling me to just reinstall Win XP. The problem is, as i was moving files from my old pc to the new one, i was deleting files, so i wouldn't duplicate anything. I'm unable to boot into safe mode. When i try safe mode it lists all the system files being loaded. It gets to windows/system32/drivers/mup.sys and hangs there. No matter what flavor of Safe Mode i choose. The fact that i can get to the recovery console and see the files i want to save allows me to keep the faith that i can recover these files somehow. Unfortunetly, i don't have the SET command enabled in the recovery console, so i can't access any directories other then c:\windows.

Any ideas how i can copy the files to a spare drive to save them, then reinstall??

Thanks in advance for your help and time

Bryan O.

 

Do you have any hardware connected to the laptop while trying to boot into Safe Mode?

You can always do a Repair Reinstall, which would reinstall WindowsXP over your current install without erasing your data.

 

All i have connected is a USB Floppy. Trying to make a boot disk, just so i can get a command prompt to copy files.

OK, so Repair Install. It seems to start chkdsk before beginning the installation??..?? It stalls at 6%. Running chkdsk from the Console, same thing, stalls at 6%

 

One quick thing i forgot to ask.

Is it possible to creat a bootable floppy that allows me access to my C: drive??

I've looked all over cyber land. Found a few articles saying to create a floppy with boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr on it. I create that disk and when i try to boot from it, it says non-system disk.

So, i formatted a disk on a working XP machine, selected the create an ms-dos startup disk option. This doesn't let me access C: though.

Any ideas??

Thanks
Bryan

 

Okay! Unplug your USB floppy and try booting into Safe Mode again. If that does NOT work do a repair reinstall.

Boot from your CD-ROM and go from there. Leave the Floppy unplugged!

Note: Choose the second R not the first one as this takes you into the recovery console which is not what you want.

 

Thanks for the quick response.

Unplugging the floppy does allow me into Safe mode. I went into Safe Mode with Command Prompt. I can see all my files.. But of course i have no support to copy them to a floppy or external drive. Anything i can do to obtain this support??

I've tried the second R. And i thought i mentioned, if not, i will now that anytime i try that or just a plain chkdsk, it stalls at 6%.. So doing the repair install fails.

Bryan

 

First, just to be sure lets try this, while in Safe Mode click Start > Run > type in msconfig

On the General Tab click Selective Startup and uncheck "Load Startup Items" and allow your computer to reboot.

Tell me EXACTLY what your computer does from the BIOS screen on.

 

after doing what you just asked me to do....


1. shows me alienware splash.
2. shows me it recognizes the RAID 0 config
3. goes back to alienware splash.
4. and now DOES NOT even get to windows splash screen. Just a black screen.


Bryan

 

and now, trying to load into safe mode... it does the exact same thing i just mentioned to you....

Bryan

 

Have you recently installed any new hardware/software?

Was this just a sudden event or have you been having problems?

Also, try going into the BIOS and loading setup defaults.

 

nothing, hardware or software, was installed from the time it was working fine to the time it failed.

I woke up this morning, after having no problems yesterday, and it just wouldn't boot.

 

Okay! Go ahead and try to load the BIOS defaults see if that helps any.

 

ok, so now i try and get into BIOS... Can't do it.. Just gives me a black screen.

 

3rd times a charm.. i got into BIOS, loaded defaults. but still getting a black screen.. Doesn't even make it to Windows Splash screen now..

 

Okay! Go back into the BIOS and set the Hard Disk Drive as First Boot!

I have to head to the office but I'm sure someone else will come in and help if I dont make it back in time.

 

thank you very much for your time.. I really appreciate it.. Catch ya later..

Bryan

 

One more quick question, do you have SP2 installed? If so, has it been installed within the past few days?

 

moving the HD back to the first slot in the boot order doesn't change anything.. Still goes to a black screen.

SP2 is installed.. came that way....

 

Okay! This could be several things, its hard to point out the right one without having the computer in front of me.

If I dont make it back in time, someone else will join in and assist you. I have requested someone to take a look at this issue for you while im out, will check back when time permits. Hang in there

 

Thanks again...

Just seeing the files sitting there makes me not wanna give up.. Of course, i really need them and time couldn't replace them. If there's a way i could just copy them and then reinstall or replace faulty hardware... so annoying, especially because it's two weeks old...

Thanks again.

Bryan

 

The fact that the chkdfsk doesn't finish should cue you into at least, filesystem damage. Chkdsk is independent of other files, except autocheck.exe.
Chkdsk doesn't require the registry or even anything to be installed to run either.

I see two choices, really.

Let chkdsk finish. Its going to appear to stall in places, that is fine. just leave it for a while (more than an hour).

and/or
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4007.html
Make a bootable, Live Windows PE-like CD and
backup data, repartition and format.

 

I ended up finding Bart's PE Builder around 6am this morning. At that point i couldn't keep my eyes open anymore Thanks for the tip though. All i want to do it backup a couple of files that i never had a chance to make backups of, and then yes, i'll reinstall from scratch. Thanks for you input Adrynalyne.


Bryan

 

WOW, ok... where might i find some help files on Bart's PE Builder??

I installed it, started it up on my old machine. It's asking me for source path, custom path..

Basically, i would need support from this program, to allow me to burn a CD backup of the files I need OR allow me support to connect a firewire drive to backup the files OR network support to allow me to use my old computer to grab those files.

Sorry, i'm exhausted right now and don't want to make any stupid mistakes creating this disc.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Bryan

 

Thank you bjgarrick and Adrynalyne for your help. I managed to install Bart's PE, grabbed the files I needed and started fresh.

Sorry to clog things up with the post about finding help. After i got a nap in after staying up all night, i did a 5 second search and found exactly what i needed. Everything is saved and all is well.

Thanks again.

Bryan

 

Glad to see you got it worked out.

The PE builder is not the most straightforward thing, but it makes one helluva handy tool.