[jdduquesne]

Hello,
I have an ASUS A6 with XP Home SP3.
During a reboot for reinstalling the IDE main controller (to get my HD back from PIO to Ultra 5 DMA mode ...) my laptop got stuck on the XP "Welcome" screen and finally told me that c_850.nls was missing or corrupted and that I had to proceed with an XP repair ...
I have no XP original CD but only the Recovery CD from ASUS.
I have read many forums and found topics suggesting using OTLPENet CD to diagnose and fix what may be a virus problem ?
From another (not yet corrupted) laptop I have loaded and burnt the iso.
I have checked that I can boot my ASUS from it which is the case. I was therefore able to xplore2 my C: and D: which I can apparently read from the Old Timer interface.
But it seems that the process must be anyway customised to my specific case.
Is there anyone to help me through the all thing ???
Thanks for any help you can offer.

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Before you do anything with OTLPENet, try running chkdsk from the Recovery Console.

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, type: chkdsk /r and press Enter.
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).

If that doesn't help, see here for use of OTLPENet: Avira Support Forum

[Ztruker]

Before you do anything with OTLPENet, try running chkdsk from the Recovery Console.

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, type: chkdsk /r and press Enter.
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).

If that doesn't help, see here for use of OTLPENet: Avira Support Forum

[jdduquesne]

Hello,

On the ASUS the F2 key leads to the boot config. I have put my CD in the 1st position. But as I mentionned, I do not have an XP installation CD, only the OEM ASUS recovery CD. At this stage, I would not like to use this yet !!

The F8 key leads to the "Menu d'options avancées de windows XP" (in french ...) with items such as "Normal", "Mode sans échec" (Safe mode), "Dernière bonne config" (last sound config ?"), "Debugging", "Invite de commande" (command prompt) ... Any of these menu items leads then to a "Choisissez l'OS à démarrer" (Select the OS to start) with the only choice being "Microsoft Windows XP Edition familiale" (XP home). But when selected, the start up sequence starts and after a very long time (and a progress bar stopping at approx 25%) ends up with a "Windows cannot starts due to a file missing or corrupted, please reinstall a copy of file". It seems to me that is not always the same files (I did this sequence several times now) but generally ntoskrnl.exe and hal.dll, but I have seen also fastfat.sys, c_850.nls ... All these files are on partition(2) in Windows/System32 (I have kept the hidden recovery partition which must be (1)).

The F9 key looks closer to what you ask me to do ... Strange enough, this menu has an english title "Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu", a system that I never had on this machine ...

The menu items are "Reboot to XP", "Recover XP to 1st partition only" (it means certainly the C: partition ...), "Recover XP to entire HD" and "Recover XP to entire HD with 2 partitions", "Enter a choice". At the bottomp of the screen : "F5=Safe mode, Shift+F5=Command prompt, Shift+F8=Step-by-step configuration [N]". This must therefore be what you call the Recovery console ? Shift+F5 gives me a"C:>" prompt, but the suggested command "chkdsk /r" (or "chkdsk.exe /r") gives me a "Bad command or file name" answer ...

Should I try another key ?
Any other way to make this chkdsk ??

Thanks for your help, and excuse my poor frenchy english ...

[Ztruker]

I gave you instruction on how to create a XP Recovery CD you can boot to run chkdsk using ARCDC by Artellos. Try that first..

As it states, you can do this on another computer to use on the one you are trying to fix.

[jdduquesne]

Hello,
I have uploaded ARCDC and burnt the iso.
The "chkdsk /r" leads to a "the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problem".
So is it definitively a lost case ?
Thanks

[Ztruker]

At least it's good to know where the problem lies, right? Let me know how it goes once you replace the drive.

Good luck.

[jdduquesne]

Does that mean there is no possibility to get this HD back to work ? even thru restoring the C: drive to the initial state with the recovery: paertition ??

[Ztruker]

No, if chkdsk /r won't complete then the drive is physically defective so you need to replace it.

You can check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools as an additional check:
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics

[jdduquesne]

Hello,
I have burnt the recommended CD for testing my Fujitsu HD.
Indeed even a quick test cannot be achieved.
My HD seems definitively useless.
I'm going to invest in a new laptop and maybe change also the HD on my dead one.
Thanks for your help.
JDD