Urgently need some help here :(

 

While loading Zonealarm yesterday, my pc (running xp) decided to lock up. It will not boot up at all (not even in safety). On the normal boot up it just hangs on the initial windows screen (where you get the blue loading bar going from left to right on the bottom). Any ideas????

 

I needed to get some photos off urgently so I put a different HDD in and loaded windows ME (Only disks I have), it took over 12 hours to load but it will not recognize the CD roms, any ideas on that?

 

Cheers

 

Vijay

Press F8 as windows loads and a sub-menu comes up (where you go into safe mode)

when loading and try last known good configuration

try booting pc using the XP hard drive, after the post screen keep pushing F8 untill it askes you what to do. choose last known good configuration. see if that will load it.

poo, beaten to it! :rolleyes:

lol, copycat :)

nope, last know configuration didn't work either :(

 

Bye the way I can access the drive as I've set it up as a slave if that helps

you lost me Vijay

Set the XP hard disk to master - remove the other (just to prove) and does it boot then?

when you say you can access the drive - is that from booting off another disk into ME then in file explorer you can see XP files (presumably formatted as FAT/FAT32)?

old configuration (which stopped working) was a Maxtor drive running xp was the master and a Wester Digital drive was set up as a slave.

 

What I have done is removed the Maxtor (with XP on it) and I have installed ME onto the WD drive. I then plugged in the Maxtor as a slave so I can access the files.

have you tried running a chkdsk on the maxtor?

another thing to try is to enable boot logging from f8 menu and it will create a log for you to see whats failing.

Set your XP drive back up as the master and then boot from your XP CD. Then use this article to restore a good registry copy. If you need help mate call me on 020-8657 5674.

 

CheerZ

 

Steve :)

have you tried running a chkdsk on the maxtor?

 

Probably do this first Vijay. Boot from XP CD, go to recovery console, then from the prompt type chkdsk /p

 

HTH

 

Steve :)

does it matter if my copy of XP is not bootable? (at least I don't think it was)

it's booted up in safety mode - what next??

Go to Start, Run then type restore in the run box. Then double click on rstrui, choose Restore My Computer to an Earlier Time, then find the most recent highlighted date with a restore point (before the problem appeared). Then just follow the on screen instructions. Still recommend a scandisk/chkdsk when you get sorted...

 

HTH

 

Steve :)

if it booted in safe mode after running chkdsk you may find it will boot normally without a restore.

the last restore point didn't work. I've booted it up in safe mode with DOS prompt and I can run chkdsk but it says "invalid parameter - /p". I ran just chkdsk with no parameter and it found errors and said to run chkdsk with a parameter of /f. Is that the way to go??

 

Cheers

 

Vijay

the last restore point didn't work. I've booted it up in safe mode with DOS prompt and I can run chkdsk but it says "invalid parameter - /p". I ran just chkdsk with no parameter and it found errors and said to run chkdsk with a parameter of /f. Is that the way to go??

 

Cheers

 

Vijay

 

Yes, use /f - I was getting confused with a Win2k parameter :nelson:

 

Steve :slap: