M
Mark Lewis
Sorry if this is the wrong group - just looking for some ideas...
Long story short, I was trying to make room on a FAT32 C: 4.7GB partition to
install SP3 on XP Professional , and did various silly (read: stupid) things
like 1) have no backup, 2) system restore turned off (although I did move one
restore point to a different drive/partition, so I might be able to use it),
3) moved various update restore directories to the above mentioned drive.
Of course, the BSOD happened in mid-update - where exactly I'm not sure
because I was in front of the machine at the time. With a reboot, the chkdsk
started - I cancelled it (another swift move on my part). Setup rolled itself
back. With the next reboot, XP got as far as loading to the point where my
profile starts - nothing happened beyond the mouse pointer appearing. Same
thing in safe mode. Tried safe mode with command prompt - no login shield.
Tried to launch the repair console from my slipstreamed-with-SP install disk
- machine reboots itself at point where the administrator login prompt would
normally show. Tried going through the "Repair Install" - let chkdsk run
(lost chains recovered), a reboot to CD and with the Repair Install got the
files from the cd copied to disk. Crossed my fingers, and rebooted to the
hard drive - but same result, this time with jagged mouse pointer (VGA
drivers ?). And that's where I am now -
If there's any hope in heck of recovering my installation (my programs are
on a different partition, with lots of registry redirect hacks for Quicktime
and other "always to C" installations), I'm happy to listen to suggestions. I
can access my hard drive with a BartPE disk, so if renaming and moving around
hidden files can get me there, I can do that. The login problem, though,
suggests that I may have SAM database or dll corruption, or a combination of
SP2 and 3 files that don't want to work together, which is obviously far more
serious.
And next time, I'll have a complete backup, so help me....
Thanks in advance -
Long story short, I was trying to make room on a FAT32 C: 4.7GB partition to
install SP3 on XP Professional , and did various silly (read: stupid) things
like 1) have no backup, 2) system restore turned off (although I did move one
restore point to a different drive/partition, so I might be able to use it),
3) moved various update restore directories to the above mentioned drive.
Of course, the BSOD happened in mid-update - where exactly I'm not sure
because I was in front of the machine at the time. With a reboot, the chkdsk
started - I cancelled it (another swift move on my part). Setup rolled itself
back. With the next reboot, XP got as far as loading to the point where my
profile starts - nothing happened beyond the mouse pointer appearing. Same
thing in safe mode. Tried safe mode with command prompt - no login shield.
Tried to launch the repair console from my slipstreamed-with-SP install disk
- machine reboots itself at point where the administrator login prompt would
normally show. Tried going through the "Repair Install" - let chkdsk run
(lost chains recovered), a reboot to CD and with the Repair Install got the
files from the cd copied to disk. Crossed my fingers, and rebooted to the
hard drive - but same result, this time with jagged mouse pointer (VGA
drivers ?). And that's where I am now -
If there's any hope in heck of recovering my installation (my programs are
on a different partition, with lots of registry redirect hacks for Quicktime
and other "always to C" installations), I'm happy to listen to suggestions. I
can access my hard drive with a BartPE disk, so if renaming and moving around
hidden files can get me there, I can do that. The login problem, though,
suggests that I may have SAM database or dll corruption, or a combination of
SP2 and 3 files that don't want to work together, which is obviously far more
serious.
And next time, I'll have a complete backup, so help me....
Thanks in advance -