[riponfrosh]

Hello, all. I forgot that i had removed the battery from my laptop and went to move it from one side of the room to the other, so i unplugged it and, of course, it turned off immediately. This has happened before with no issues.
Now, however, the computer will boot through the dell menu (allowing me to select either f2 or f12) then go to a black screen with a blinking cursor (which doesn't allow me to do anything.)
Going into the setup i find that my hard drive is recognized, same as ram, etc.
My boot order is internal hard drive as number 1.
I cannot boot into safe mode, or any other mode.
I removed the c-mos battery and left it out for a few hours. This didn't help.
I'm on a job site in Nebraska (i live in wisconsin) so i have no means of swapping hard drives, or any other such conveniences.
Please help! I have 150gb of stuff on there that i truly need.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.... !

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Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[rshaffer61]

Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[riponfrosh]

I burned the disk and put it in the faulty pc, however, nothing happens. I changed the bios to boot from the cd drive, and the drive spins and acts as though it's loading information, however the screen remains black with a blinking cursor the entire time....

[rshaffer61]

Did you burn the disk as a data disk?

[riponfrosh]

no, i followed the instructions above, and using magic iso burned it as an iso file...

I tried using a bootable version of xp i have (possibly the one i have on there now) and i'm able to get to the "Press any key to boot from CD..." prompt and then the "setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..."

however, there it sits...

[rshaffer61]

It sounds like the burn did not work correctly. we can try it a different way.
Put your winxp cd in cd drive and reboot your system
When prompted to push any key to boot to cdrom then click a key
Click R to enter recovery console

Type the following

expand d:\i386\userinit.ex_ c:\windows\system32
click enter

Once it says 1 file copied
Then type exit and click enter
System will reboot
Make sure to remove winxp cd before it boots up and let it boot fully
Windows should start normally

If not post with result 

[riponfrosh]

Thanks for the responses!

Ok, i reburned the disk and this one seemed to work.
It ran through setup and then gave me the welcome to setup screen

I typed in what was described in the first reply post, and it says Access is denied after i type copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32

[rshaffer61]

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit

Did you change to the D drive?

[riponfrosh]

yep, I follwed everthing
the last thing currently on the screen reads as follows...

D:\I386>copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
Access is denied.

D:\I386>(cursor)

[rshaffer61]

Ok well that makes it a little harder then but still possible to fix.
Since you have the XP cd let's do this differently.
First of all I want to make sure your data is safe by doing the following.

Get Puppy Linux from my signature below...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd
..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get Burncdcc from my signature...it is a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....

put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all your data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...

==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...about half the width of the screen...then drag the window to the right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to
the narrowest you can..about half the width of the screen...drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmouting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..

Thanks to happyrock

[rshaffer61]

Once your data is safe then we will do a Repair Installation and try to fix the OS system itself.


Repair Installation Instructions

· Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and then Restart your computer.
· At the first post screen start tapping the Del key to enter System Bios
· Find the Advance Options or Boot Sequence screen.
· You will need to change the boot sequence so that the CDrom is first and the HD is second.
· Press F10 to Save and Exit and then press Enter to accept.
· The system will now reboot
· When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
· When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER
· To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
· At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

· On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
· Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected and highlighted in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.
· Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

You can also go HERE
to read a step by step tutorial with screenshots.

[riponfrosh]

thanks again for all the help, I got puppy linux up and running, now i'm wondering if it's possible to retrieve all of my data through a network. The jobsite i'm on consists of a stand alone network. I entered in a 192.168 IP and i'm connected (i think) now i'm just wondering if that would be possible. Since i have a desktop on the network with plenty of hard drive space to send all my stuff so i don't lose it... is this possible?? Otherwise i'll have to run to wal-mart or best buy and pick up an external...

and a quick question about puppy linux. If I were to shut down now, what would happen? would i have to completely start over using the boot disk again??
Thanks again!

[rshaffer61]

In order to get through a network the system would have to be running.
If you shutdown then yes you would have to reboot the system with the puppy Linux in the drive.

[riponfrosh]

Are you saying xp would have to be running? The network itself is fine, and like i said i can connect to it. Just wondering if i could then remotely connect to the "broken" laptop and retreive the c drive contents.
Thanks again for all the help, hopefully i can get xp to reload, but at least i think my info was saved...

[rshaffer61]

How can you connect if the system cannot connect to the network?
The network wouldn't be able to obtain a IP for the system because it's not online.