Booting problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ed Salazar
  • Start date Start date
E

Ed Salazar

Hi all,

Last week, I decided (maybe wrongly) to upgrade my W2K
SP2 installation to SP4. Since then, problems began
mounting. Yesterday, after switching-on my laptop the
boot-up procedure began OK, but then, just before the
login/PWD request, the machine froze completely.

Decided to switch-off, and reboot, but... an "invalid
system disk" message popped-up, no way to bott the
machine.

Went on to boot from the CD, and tried an emergency
repair (I have no ERDs available...) The CD was unable to
locate the previous W2K installation.

Switched to DOS, using another ad-hoc boot disk, to check
what was left in the C drive. Only a monolithic block, no
subdirs, nothing, BUT the listed available space was
roughly equal to the space that was left-over before the
crash (about 2.3 Gb). SoI said, OK, it might be the MBR.

Tried again with the MS Recovery Console, used the fixmbr
command, rebooted... nothing happened.

Back to the MS Recovery Console, tried fixboot. It
said "boot section corrupted", proceeded, and it left the
C drive with roughly 7 Mb. Rebooted... now "NTDLR is
missing" message popped-up.

Made an ad-hoc boot diskette with the NTDLR, NTDETECT.COM
and a BOOT.INI that reflected the machine settings... no
good.

Question is: 1) can I recover the INFO stored in my drive
(apps, files)?; 2) how ; 3) how can I make W2K operable
again?

TIA.

Ed
 
Ed Salazar said:
Hi all,

Last week, I decided (maybe wrongly) to upgrade my W2K
SP2 installation to SP4. Since then, problems began
mounting. Yesterday, after switching-on my laptop the
boot-up procedure began OK, but then, just before the
login/PWD request, the machine froze completely.

Decided to switch-off, and reboot, but... an "invalid
system disk" message popped-up, no way to bott the
machine.

Went on to boot from the CD, and tried an emergency
repair (I have no ERDs available...) The CD was unable to
locate the previous W2K installation.

Switched to DOS, using another ad-hoc boot disk, to check
what was left in the C drive. Only a monolithic block, no
subdirs, nothing, BUT the listed available space was
roughly equal to the space that was left-over before the
crash (about 2.3 Gb). SoI said, OK, it might be the MBR.

Tried again with the MS Recovery Console, used the fixmbr
command, rebooted... nothing happened.

Back to the MS Recovery Console, tried fixboot. It
said "boot section corrupted", proceeded, and it left the
C drive with roughly 7 Mb. Rebooted... now "NTDLR is
missing" message popped-up.

Made an ad-hoc boot diskette with the NTDLR, NTDETECT.COM
and a BOOT.INI that reflected the machine settings... no
good.

Question is: 1) can I recover the INFO stored in my drive
(apps, files)?; 2) how ; 3) how can I make W2K operable
again?

TIA.

Ed
Click to expand...

Here are some links to partition recovery tools:

http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/downloads.htm
http://www.restorer2000.com/r2k.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,001CVX,.html
http://www.hddrecovery.com.au

Ultimately you may have to treat this unfortunate event as a
reminder that there are two groups of PC users: Those who
back up their important files every week, and those who do
not do it just yet. The transition from one group to the other
can be very painful.
 
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