[harleysmama]

i've been trying to work on this HP Pavilion dv6-3225dx Entertainment Notebook PC for a week with no luck. This is my mother in laws computer and when the trouble first started it wouldnt boot up, when you turned it on it would go to the start up repair screen and it would say that it couldnt fix the problem, something about a corrupted registry so I tried to do a factory reset on it, i started it up and let it run over night and when i checked on it the next morning it had shut down, when i booted it up it started giving me the bootmgr is missing press ctrl + alt + del. It wont boot into windows at all and when i go into the recovery manager it doesnt recognize that an operating system is installed. I noticed that its trying to run in X: mode instead of C: mode and that it has multiple drives in the computer folder. Do i need to completely reinstall windows from a disk or would the HP recovery disks u can order get it back up and going?

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The Recovery Manager doesn't give you the option to do a destructive install?

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.

The above can be done from any computer with internet access.

On the problem 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).

Now try the Recovery again.

[Ztruker]

The Recovery Manager doesn't give you the option to do a destructive install?

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.

The above can be done from any computer with internet access.

On the problem 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).

Now try the Recovery again.