SERIOUS HDD PROBLEM - NUKED XP - CAN'T GET WINDOWS GOING AGAIN

  • Thread starter Thread starter GeoffWHere
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G

GeoffWHere

My C: drive has dropped plenty of bad sectors and much of XP went down the
drain with them. I have an identical (32GB) D: with some program and data
files on it that could be either sacrificed or copied to my 200GB E: drive
but none of this can be achieved without resurrecturing XP enough to A) See
the D/E: drives and B) shift the files around so I can get the remainder of
XP across to the replacement (D:) drive.

I've been through the Repair Install procedure as detailed by MS-MVP Michael
Stevens, including the link to Charlie White's article "Windows XP Crashed"
and the additional suggestions from MVP Alex Nichol, all to no avail.

When following Charlie White's process, I get to PART 2 where it's time to
reboot into W/XP and, after I enter the Administrator's password, the system
says it's loading personal settings and, after a pause, says it's logging
off - back to the log in screen.

I've tried to get into Safe Mode but get the same problem.

Is there any other magic I might use to at least get my Xp running enough to
get the stuff of the C: drive before I bury it?

My biggest concern is wiping out my Outlook mail file and other
documents/pics, etc that might get lost, not to mention going through a
clean install and the time/pain involved with that.

Can anybody offer assistance resolving this disaster?

Thanks in advance,
Geoff
 
GeoffWHere said:
My C: drive has dropped plenty of bad sectors and much of XP went down the
drain with them. I have an identical (32GB) D: with some program and data
files on it that could be either sacrificed or copied to my 200GB E: drive
but none of this can be achieved without resurrecturing XP enough to A) See
the D/E: drives and B) shift the files around so I can get the remainder of
XP across to the replacement (D:) drive.

I've been through the Repair Install procedure as detailed by MS-MVP Michael
Stevens, including the link to Charlie White's article "Windows XP Crashed"
and the additional suggestions from MVP Alex Nichol, all to no avail.

When following Charlie White's process, I get to PART 2 where it's time to
reboot into W/XP and, after I enter the Administrator's password, the system
says it's loading personal settings and, after a pause, says it's logging
off - back to the log in screen.

I've tried to get into Safe Mode but get the same problem.

Is there any other magic I might use to at least get my Xp running enough to
get the stuff of the C: drive before I bury it?

My biggest concern is wiping out my Outlook mail file and other
documents/pics, etc that might get lost, not to mention going through a
clean install and the time/pain involved with that.

Can anybody offer assistance resolving this disaster?

Thanks in advance,
Geoff
Click to expand...


Replace the drive with a new one, then reload Windows.

After Windows is installed on the new drive, slave your defective drive to
the machine
and try to copy over all the data you want to save.
You may possibly have to take ownership of your "My Documents" folder
 
Please expand on your comment "you may have to take ownership of My
Documents folder".

Thanks
 
You could use a boot CD like knoppix to boot an operating system on the
CDrom and copy files off to the 200G drive.
Neil
 
Philo, Neil, et al (BTW, who's Al?)

Thanks for your suggestions but I'm still in the dark as to why W/XP does
this wierdo logon/logoff thing, as described in my original post. I think I
still need to get the old C: drive cranked up so I can do the transfer to
the D:/E: drives and get the old C: drive ready for burial.

So, is there a file that I could restore from the backup or repair
directories that will get me past the "Windows is loading your personal
settings" stage?

Thanks,
Geoff
 
Did you look at the knoppix option.
Neil
GeoffWHere said:
Philo, Neil, et al (BTW, who's Al?)

Thanks for your suggestions but I'm still in the dark as to why W/XP does
this wierdo logon/logoff thing, as described in my original post. I think
I
still need to get the old C: drive cranked up so I can do the transfer to
the D:/E: drives and get the old C: drive ready for burial.

So, is there a file that I could restore from the backup or repair
directories that will get me past the "Windows is loading your personal
settings" stage?

Thanks,
Geoff
Click to expand...
 
Neil,

No not yet as I was hoping someone might come up with a simple "magic wand"
type fix but so far no luck. I'll investigate your suggestion this weekend.

Thanks,
Geoff
 
Neil,

WOW! Impressive! I've created a KNOPPIX Boot Image CD and it booted my PC
in literally a few seconds, but I'm afraid I may have opened Aladdin's Cave,
or maybe even Pandora's Box! Where to start, there's so much to see here?
I know, given that it's now 8.30pm Friday I'll go open that bottle of wine
and resume in the morning.

By tomorrow morning, you may have read this post and offered me some
suggestions about getting started on resurrecting my ailing HDD.

Geoff
 
Have a look at this webpage http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
someone has gone to a lot of trouble in detailing recovering data. I think
it's a good place to start and see if you can follow the advice to recover
your data.
I know I've used the disk before myself but to remember each step could take
a while.
best of luck
Neil
PS post back on your progress.
 
Neil,

The Shock page was very helpful, thanks. But, one step forward, three back!
I've used KNOPPIX to copy my C: drive to another HDD directory (E:), then,
reformatted C: and reinstalled XP/SP2 with no significant issues. But now,
having reinstalled W/XP I can't get KNOPPIX to boot from the CD to enable me
to restore the backed up original C: files from E:.

I've checked the BIOS setup, boot from CD is first priority but no luck,
keeps booting into W/XP from the reformatted C: HDD (drive 0). So, I can't
restore my W/XP files from the E: HDD backup I made under KNOPPIX. DOH!!

Also, W/XP doesn't acknowledge D: and E: HDD's (Drives 1 & 2). It does see
the CD/DVD Drive (D:).

Any suggestions?

Geoff
 
Hi,
Is this a new "C:\" drive or have you just reformatted the old one. What I'm
thinking is if you have replaced the drive then have you checked all your
cables and hard drive links for master & slave.

If you just copied the files from the original "C:\" drive to a folder on
another drive then you should be able to copy them back in windows if you
can get windows to recognise the drives.

Did you have the other drives connected when you reinstalled windows.?

Have you checked device manager to see if the other drives are listed as
devices.?

Right click "my computer" and select "manage" then go to "disk management",
if there are all the drives there then you need to "assign a drive letter".

see how you go on.
Neil
 
Hi Neil,

Thanks again for your intuitive thoughts - I had suspected during my
sleepness night prior to your last suggestion that my 'phantom' HDDs were
just missing because of some dumb thing around XP and, sure enough,
following your suggestion about the My Comuter Manage program, I was able to
get these drives back into the XP environment. After a bit of frustrating
fooling around and, because I couldn't see these other drives that contained
my backed up C: files, I reinstalled W/XP from scratch to the newly zeroed
(Seagate Tools did that for me) and formatted (using XP), hopefully
resurrected original C: drive. When I get through all this, I plan to
replace this drive with my (identical) D: drive and then replace the D:
drive with another high capacity drive, but that's for later.

I was panicking a bit after I got the D/E: drives back into XP because
Explorer couldn't see the files that KNOPPIX had copied from C: to E: but,
now that I've rebooted under KNOPPIX hey presto!, there they are.

The challenge now is which ones to restore back to C:? Certainly my Office
Outlook mail files and any 'My Documents' files that I need can probably
just go straight across to C: but what else (where do I find the Outlook
mailbox?)? Maybe I'm better off, apart from these essential files, to just
reinstall my applications rather than ending up with a mish-mashed registry
etc. I'd welcome your thoughts here.

Also, because XP couldn't see the file I backed up with KNOPPIX from C: to
E:, how do I ensure XP can see them after I restore them to C:?

Thanks agin,
Geoff
 
Did you just copy the files to folder using knoppix.?

You may need to "take ownership" of the files or folder on the other drive
after doing a fresh install of Windows. Use "help & support" on the start
menu and look up "take ownership" (no quotes).

Just run through the routine you used when using the knoppix disk.

Neil
 
I copied the C: drive files to E: using KNOPPIX which resulted in a sub
directory on E: containing the files from C:

When I got back XP's access to the other drives, all XP could see was the
directory I had created on E:, but Explorer could not open it - just
displayed the top directory level. I Restarted knoppix to make sure the
files were actually there and I can explore them all in knoppix.

I've just followed your suggestion about taking ownership of the XP folder
(KB 308421) and that gets me down one further level but I can only see an
icon called HDA1 and, when I open that in Windows Explorer, it contains text
type knoppix attributes. No further directory level under that icon where
the original C: files are in knoppix.

Am I toast yet?
Thanks, Geoff
 
Can you use the knoppix disk to copy the files back onto the C:\ drive.??
Its sounds like you did it correctly but I'm not sure why it should have a
icon called HDA1, that's just a ref to the way knoppix (Linux) identifies
hard drives. Are you sure you copied and not created a shortcut.
Neil
 
On closer examination I've confirmed that I'm a dead duck! The icon under
knoppix on E: called HDA1 is in fact a shortcut back to the newly formatted
C: drive with the new XP installation, so it's now obvious that I've not
copied my old XP
 
After careful scrutiny of the files listed by knoppix under the HDA1 icon on
HDF1 (F: drive), I've confirmed that I'm a dead duck! The icon is simply a
shortcut back to the newly formatted C: drive with the newly installed XP so
I didn;'t create a backup of my old C: drive to F: after all. Proving
conclusively that I have a lot to learn about knoppix/linux to rise above my
current level of having just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Thanks for your advice and persistence but now I think I need divine
assistance.
Best regards,
Geoff
 
OK, sorry it all went t*ts up.
Neil
GeoffWHere said:
After careful scrutiny of the files listed by knoppix under the HDA1 icon
on
HDF1 (F: drive), I've confirmed that I'm a dead duck! The icon is simply
a
shortcut back to the newly formatted C: drive with the newly installed XP
so
I didn;'t create a backup of my old C: drive to F: after all. Proving
conclusively that I have a lot to learn about knoppix/linux to rise above
my
current level of having just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Thanks for your advice and persistence but now I think I need divine
assistance.
Best regards,
Geoff
Click to expand...
 
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