Computer will not boot. Help!!!!!!

[luv2kruz]

I was listening to some music while running another application and my computer locked up. So I rebooted the system and now it will not load the operating system. It goes through the normal boot screens and then I see the windows logo for a second or two, the blue screen of death flashes for a second and then it reboots automatically. It's a relatively new machine with good components and I am running the Media Center 2005 operating system

I've tried the following things with no luck:

1) I tried to start windows in safe mode to restore the system. But is also crashes just as it starts loading the operating system
2) I tried rebooting from the recovery CD however all it ends up wanting to do is reinstall the operating system and wipe my hard drive clean. It gives me the message that "the partition is either too full, damaged, not formatted, or formatted with an incompatible file system". Obviously do not want to do this unless it is the last resort.
3) I tried installing the recovery operating system on the other hard drive in the machine and then I changed the bios to boot from that drive. It does not find the operating system on that drive and gives me a message "error loading operating system". I tried this to see if my original hard drive is no good. I'm not sure if I did this right!
4) I had a similar problem with some uncompatible RAM before so I took out all my four DIMMs and put in one that I know worked and it still crashes in the same spot

Can any one give me some suggestions as to how to recover from this. Is my operating system files corrupt or maybe is it the hard drive? If I can only get the machine into safe mode and know I can restore the system to an earlier time and I am pretty sure this will work.

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

[redwudz]

Here's a site you can check for ideas. It sounds like the boot partition is damaged.

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

I have also used 'Bart's PE' that will boot the system and run from a CD. It may allow you to recover the files on the drive. It will even work with no hard drive in the system. You should be able to find it with a Google search.

[Dv8ted2]

Did you try the last known working configuration option on the same screen that you got into safe mode with?

[luv2kruz]

Yes,

I tried the last known working configuration and everything else on that screen with no luck.

One more thing, I reinstalled the operating system once when I first got the machine and noticed that the system recovery disk gave me the option to "repair" the installation. I don't see this option anymore. It only wants to reinstall and format the disk.

Thanks.

[jimmalenko]

I'd slave your hard drive up to another machine, copy all the stuff you want to keep off it, then reformat and reinstall windows. I'm always suspect of "fixing" system errors and I'd much rather restart with a fresh system to minimise any further problems as a result of the fix.

[ozymango]

If you have access to any other computer, I strongly second what jimmalenko said about installing your drive as a slave on that PC, and recover all your data post haste. Reason for this is that there is always the danger that you've got a hard drive hardware error, and when hard drives start to fail, they often fail very quickly. And it would truly suck if you lost all the data forever and ever because of that.

If you absolutely don't have that option, you've only got that one machine and no other resources and you're desperate, one thing that can often work just to recover files, is go ahead and do a reinstall of your OS on the computer. You'll wipe all the program connections so most of your software won't work, but your storage folders will remain untouched and at least you can get to your data files that way. I've used this in a pinch where I had a questionable hard drive and no other drives or computer available, but did have access to another computer over the network (network servers, in a far away building). I reinstalled Windows, just enough to get it to boot and have network operations, then uploaded all the files I needed to remote host.

Or if you have a CD/DVD burner, you may have enough time left to install the OS, install your burning software, then quickly backup all your data to CDs or DVDs, depending. Then you can restore everything later, to a new drive.

Again I'm assuming that this is due to a drive becoming faulty, hardware failure, and it may not be the case in your situation. But I always try to imagine a "worst case scenario" and proceed with making sure I've got all my important stuff backed up.

Good luck!

EDIT: I just re-read your post and it looks like you already tried the reinstall option and got error messages re possible partition problems. Ugh. BUT it may just be that you do have a full hard drive. But you said this is a newish computer and your specs say it's 160gb ... do you think there's a chance you really are using this much disc space?

[ozymango]

3) I tried installing the recovery operating system on the other hard drive in the machine and then I changed the bios to boot from that drive. It does not find the operating system on that drive and gives me a message "error loading operating system". I tried this to see if my original hard drive is no good. I'm not sure if I did this right!

Missed this the first time through, this is good, you have an out with this one.

I'm guessing that what's happening is that Windows is looking to the wrong drive for your boot.ini file and that can happen when you install the OS on a secondary drive when it's also installed on the primary. Dunno the technical reasons but there it is.

Anyway, there are a bunch of ways to get around this (many involving hand-editing of files, not that bad really), but easiest way I've found is just go ahead and physically disconnect the power and IDE/SATA cable to your primary hard drive, your "dead" drive. Then connect the IDE/SATA cable to your secondary drive only, using the "primary" connection, and I'll assume that both drives are already set to "cable select" so you won't need to change any jumpers.

Go back into BIOS, set your boot drive to HD0, single drive, you know the setting. Then boot with the OS CD, reinstall the OS on your single drive, reboot, make sure it's working okay -- then once it is, reconnect your "dead" drive as the slave, reboot, and get your old files off (move 'em to your new master, copy to CD/DVD, whatever).

Then once you've got all your files safely moved, you can go ahead and put your "dead" drive back in as the master (just connect that one drive), do the format/reinstall thing, connect your other drive as a slave, and you're back in business! You can then delete the Windows folder from your slave drive as you only need to install the OS on that drive to recover stuff. Although I'd probably just leave it installed (if you're not pressed for disc space) so that if -- or more likely, when -- your first hard drive fails again, you can just swap drives and be back up in a few minutes.

Hope that helps!

[luv2kruz]

I disconnected the primary drive and reinstalled the OS on the second drive. It still gives me "error loading operating system" and I never see even a glimpse of the windows logo.

On the site that redwudz posted, it mentions the "recovery console". This is the console that I saw when I reinstalled the OS a while back. It had a repair option in it and I do not see this anymore.

Man this is a PITA.

I'll keep digging on the websites and if you guys think of anything else, I'd appreciate it.

THanks.

[burnman99]

luv2kruz, i'd try booting from the CD ,then i think it's the repair or recovery console you want to type in fixmbr. If that doesn't work, then i'd hook up a 2nd drive move the important stuff over and reinstall the OS. Notta lotta help, i can give at this point.

Roger

[luv2kruz]

As suggested, I am trying to copy over stuff from the first drive to the second one and then reformat/reinstall the OS on the first drive. I have installed the OS on the second drive and this is where I am stuck. It still gives me "error loading operating system" not matter what I do.

Right now I have the original drive disconnected and the second one connected. Both are SATA drives. I still don't know why it will not boot from the second drive. Is it because this drive was originally formatted as a secondary drive and I named it the z: drive? I read somewhere that there can only by one drive as the system drive and it has to be the C: drive.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[redwudz]

If all else fails, you might try the 'Bart's PE' disc I mentioned. I've been able to boot a dead computer and get access to the drives by running the OS from the Bart disc. You need a valid XP OS disc with SP1 or better to create the disc.

I don't think the OS cares what the drive letter is, but some programs want to use only a C: drive for program installation. SATA boot drives can be problematic at times.

If you have a spare PATA hard drive it would be easier for the computer to recognize it. It seems like a lot of MBs prefer a PATA boot.

Or you may have to to install the SATA drivers from a floppy before the computer will recognize the SATA drive as a boot drive. They were probably installed on your old boot drive.

[dipstick]

Thank's for the tip on the BartPE. I just finnished creating a nice BartPE CD loaded with nice utilities like Irfanview, McAfee Virus scaner, Partition Magic and Nero 6.

It works great! A must have tool for system or data recovery from a serious system failure.

[redwudz]

dipstick, you're welcome. I booted one computer with no hard drives attached and ran several programs and a version of the XP OS just from the RAM disk. You can also place diagnostic and repair programs on it. It makes a great rescue disc.

[luv2kruz]

I've created a Bart PE disk and have been able to retrieve my important files from the second disk. I think that I will reformat and reinstall this disk as my primary.

Within Bart PE, it will not give me access to the first disk, so I will assume that it is more than just a corrupt file. Hard to believe a system as little as 8 months old would have a hard drive failure. Oh well, I guess this is not that uncommon. Sh it happens.

Before I reformat this drive however, I would like to take a stab at installing the SATA drivers from the mobo disk. Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure this out. Can you give me some advise on how to do this.

When I run the mobo disk during boot, it takes me into a menu where it asks me to create a disk and only routes me to disk A: I don't have a floppy, only two cd drives.

Can I install the drivers with Bart? Is it as simple as just copying the files over or do they require "installation"? What do the files look like? I have an ASUS A8N SLI mobo.

Thanks.

Thanks.

[redwudz]

I've ran into that problem before, trying to install SATA drivers with no floppy drive. What saved me is a external USB floppy drive that came with my laptop. If the OS only will accept a floppy drive source, that is one way. I'm not sure if a CD would work or even a USB thumb drive. It depends if you can redirect the OS setup to a device other than a floppy.

Now that many computers come without a floppy, there should be an alternative method. I'll try to check around a little and see if I can find something on the web. Maybe someone here has done this?

EDIT: Looking around a little, some alternatives:

Most of the time if you do a clean install of Windows, repartitioning and reformatting, you don't need to install the SATA drivers. The XP disc will do it. But this doesn't always work. Then you have the option of temporarily installing a floppy drive. The USB drive I mentioned before usually works. If not, you would need a floppy and cables and hang it off the side of the case. (Be careful not to short anything out. )

Another method is the slipstream the drivers along with your XP install disc to a new disc and use that for setting up XP. Nlite is a good program to do this. http://www.nliteos.com/.

And here is a link to a discussion of the SATA boot problem:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1028793383#post1028793383

Good luck.

[ozymango]

Within Bart PE, it will not give me access to the first disk, so I will assume that it is more than just a corrupt file. Hard to believe a system as little as 8 months old would have a hard drive failure. Oh well, I guess this is not that uncommon. Sh it happens.

Glad to hear you were able to get your data back, and sorry it looks like your drive is fubar'ed. I've only worked on a couple of SATA machines (like 10 out of the 500+ we support) and they're all almost brand-new so we haven't had any drive failures yet ... I guess we'll end up learning the ins and outs of SATA boot failure soon enough!

But as for new drives dying within a few month -- statistically speaking, it's still pretty rare, but it's no fun when you're that .01% of the population who's affected. So it's useful to remember the 3 Rules of Safe Computing -- backup, backup, and backup! Not that I always do myself ... ...