[starrs]

Hi Guys Im having another disaster.
I was trying to get rid of a nag screen from some old software, which was hard to remove, and I tried using an uninstaller called ‘QS_Uninstaller’.
It asked me to restart and then it froze so I unplugged it since then all I get when I try to start it is the little windows xp logo and nothing else, I tried safe mode and though I got the Safe mode words in the corner of the screen it then goes into the small logo again. This machine was working so well and I have loads of stuff on it that I need to keep, Is there a way of me getting it to start without losing all the service packs and drivers? It’s a Packard Bell with an Athlon XP chip.

[Advertisements]

You are going to have to get into BIOS Setup on your computer to set the CD/DVD drive as the first bootable device, so you can then boot your XP CD, unless it provides the ability to press a Fn key at boot time to bring up the boot selection menu. If it does, use that.

How you do this varies with each manufacturer. Normally you press F1, F2, F10 or Del when you see the manufacturers logo. Often there is a clue somewhere on the screen when you boot normally telling you what key to press. Some computers (most newer ones) have a key you can press (often F12) to bring up the Boot Menu from where you can select the CD/DVD drive to boot from.

If you don't have an XP CD, download and run ARCDC by Artellos. It will download the required files from the Microsoft Web site and create a .iso file. It will also offer to burn the iso image to a CD for you. If you don't do it then, there is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do it at a later time. If you're unsure how to do this, you can follow the tutorial here: How to Burn an ISO File. This can be done from any computer.

Boot the CD and at the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console.

Next, choose which XP installation you want to login to. Normally this will be 1.
Lastly you will be asked for the Administrator password. Just press the Enter key as the Administrator does not have a password (unless you gave it one, then you would enter it).

From the command prompt, enter: chkdsk /r
Allow it to complete undisturbed. It can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive.

Remove the CD, type exit and the computer will reboot. Hopefully that will have fixed the problem (corrupted file system).

[Ztruker]

You are going to have to get into BIOS Setup on your computer to set the CD/DVD drive as the first bootable device, so you can then boot your XP CD, unless it provides the ability to press a Fn key at boot time to bring up the boot selection menu. If it does, use that.

How you do this varies with each manufacturer. Normally you press F1, F2, F10 or Del when you see the manufacturers logo. Often there is a clue somewhere on the screen when you boot normally telling you what key to press. Some computers (most newer ones) have a key you can press (often F12) to bring up the Boot Menu from where you can select the CD/DVD drive to boot from.

If you don't have an XP CD, download and run ARCDC by Artellos. It will download the required files from the Microsoft Web site and create a .iso file. It will also offer to burn the iso image to a CD for you. If you don't do it then, there is a good freeware burner called ImgBurn which will do it at a later time. If you're unsure how to do this, you can follow the tutorial here: How to Burn an ISO File. This can be done from any computer.

Boot the CD and at the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console.

Next, choose which XP installation you want to login to. Normally this will be 1.
Lastly you will be asked for the Administrator password. Just press the Enter key as the Administrator does not have a password (unless you gave it one, then you would enter it).

From the command prompt, enter: chkdsk /r
Allow it to complete undisturbed. It can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive.

Remove the CD, type exit and the computer will reboot. Hopefully that will have fixed the problem (corrupted file system).

[starrs]

I tried that but it had no effect even though it said it had made repairs.
There are two partitions
1. G:\MININT and
2. C.\WINDOWS
I tried CHKDSK/R on both of them and yes it did take quite a while, is there something else I can try?

[Ztruker]

When you get to the Advanced Boot Options Menu, select Last known good configuration that worked. See if that fixes it.

See here: How to Boot to the Advanced Boot Options in Vista

[starrs]

That was the first thing I tried it didnt work,I tried it again but its still no good.

[Ztruker]

The best way to protect from this kind of problem is to do regular image backups to an external hard drive. Too late for that now, I know but keep it in mind for the future.

Do you have a XP Install CD? If so you can do a Repair Install. This will put you back to the XP level of the install CD so you may need to reinstall SP1 or SP2 and SP3 plus all updates. No way around that. You will also have to reinstall any anti0virus and firewall software and possibly some of you other software, no way to know for sure until you do it.

The advantage is it will not mess with your data. Of course Murphy's law is in effect here and something could go wrong so if it were me, I'd backup my data before doing a Repair Install. There are a couple ways you can do this.

1. Mount the hard drive as a slave in another computer and copy the data somewhere.
2. Use a Live Puppy Linux CD to boot from and copy your data somewhere safe.

Download the bootable Puppy Linux iso image. Get the latest version available, currently puppy-5.2.5. If you don't have a burning program that will burn .iso files get burncdcc, a small FAST no frills iso burning program or ImgBurn, another small, fast and simple burner.

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 linux
3. Select the .iso file
4. Suggestion.... Check the option "Fix close"
5. Click on "Start"

Make sure in the BIOS Setup, the CD/DVD drive is the first boot device. Put the Puppy Linux CD in the drive, then reboot your computer. Puppy will boot and run totally in ram. After you get it running and you're at the Puppy Desktop, take the CD out and then you can use the burner software to save all your data to CD/DVD. You can also use it to backup your data to a external USB harddrive or Flash drive, just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with Puppy.

[starrs]

Hi Sorry I was offline for a few days. Only just seen this.
I’m on a really slow connection and have never been successful with any service packs, so I really don’t want to lose the ones on the Downed PC.

Thanks for the ‘Puppy’ Links, that’s a really good idea I will do that straight away.

There is a ‘fixboot’ option on the small partition, would that work without me losing everything?

[Ztruker]

You can order SP3 on CD from Microsoft: Windows XP Service Pack 3

If your install disc is at SP1 then you can go directly to SP3. If it has no service pack then you need to install SP1 or SP2 before you can install SP3. I can't find anywhere you can order a SP1 or SP2 CD though so if needed, it will have to be downloaded. I would go with SP1 as it's smaller.

[starrs]

I used the recover consol to repair the windows installation and I finally got windows to start.
Then I used System restore to try to bring back the old settings.

It now takes forever to start up and I have lost windows features such as Copy/Paste.

[Ztruker]

How does it behave if you boot to Safe Mode with Networking? If better then something is starting at boot that is causing the problem.

Advanced startup options - XP

Use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem

This is a good tutorial on using msconfig in XP:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Reboot and see if it runs better.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.
Enable everything else you disabled.

[starrs]

No that was no good I Only had a couple of things on the startup any stopping them had no effect on the problems.
Right now I can boot into windows but I cannot copy anything onto the hard drive as drag an drop and copy an paste does not work. Also I cant install the sound drivers or anything else as a get a message that windows installer is not working.

[Ztruker]

I found lots of Google hits for drag and drop not working xp.

This one sounds very promising: How to Fix Drag and Drop Problems in XP. It changes the registry so you should back it up first. Good instructions for doing that are located here: How To Backup the Registry in Windows XP

If this was my computer, I would back up my data then do a Repair Install. I realize you have a slow connection but I think there are enough significant problems that this is the best way to go. If that doesn't fix it then a Clean Install will be needed.

We can continue to work on the problems you are seeing, just thought I'd let you know what I think is the best course of action to take.

[starrs]

Thanks for links.
If the drag n drop fixer works, will this sort out whats wrong with the windows installer?
I will be offline for a few days. Let you know what happens.

[Ztruker]

Windows Installer is a separate problem. We can tackle that when you get back.

[starrs]

I’m really busy with other stuff for the next few days, what I’m thinking of doing now is to fit another hard drive and slave the old one to it. But I am still very interested in trying to work through these problems as it teaches me so much.
As well as the installer problems I cant find a way of writing any data to the DVD drive, although I can read from it OK. I have tried several different writers but they all say they can’t find the drive.
It’s the same with Puppy as with my windows XP OS.