Need help from XP expert please

G

Goobie

Expert Member
Joined
May 22, 2004
Messages
1,571
Reaction score
51
Location
Bloemfontein
very long story, but the short version is that I did some HD cleanup but now pc only boots into XP up to the background with a moving mouse pointer. Tried all safe mode options but nothing works. Reformatting is not an option.

does anybody know how to access the system restore when booting into xp fails. Please help. Thanks.
 
As you boot up, just before you get the graphical "Loading Windows XP", press F8. You should be able to boot in to safe mode, or Last Known Good.
 
thisgeek said:
As you boot up, just before you get the graphical "Loading Windows XP", press F8. You should be able to boot in to safe mode, or Last Known Good.
Click to expand...

Doesn't work, safe mode (and the other options) continues up to a point then all hangs with hdd LED flashing once every 2 secs.
 
It gives you a command prompt, so unless you're good with dos, you can save your files elsewhere.
It will be better to get Winternals ERD Commander 2005.
Link:
Code: 
http://searchwindowssecurity.techtarget.com/downloadPage/0,295339,sid45_gci1212576,00.html
 
windows repair?
Boot from XP cd, wait for the first menu & press R.
 
You can try a repair installation. I've had some success with these. PLEASE HAVE YOUR CD KEY (COA/PID) TO HAND YOU WILL PROBABLY REQUIRE IT. Do not attempt a repair install if you do no have access to your product key!

Set your BIOS to boot from the CD.
Use the XP CD which came with the pc and boot from it.
Press "any key" to boot from the CD and not the HDD.

At the Welcome To Setup Screen, DO NOT choose the option to repair your installation using Recovery Console. Instead press Enter, which starts the Windows Setup Program. After you accept the license agreement, Windows will search your HDD for existing installations. When you reach the screen that lists your current Windows installation, select it from the list and press "R" to start the repair process. The rest of the repair looks like a clean install but should give you a repaired install.

If the setup program cannot find an existing Windows installation you will have to abort the repair and recover your data and then format and re-install because then your OS is so corrupt that it cannot be repaired.

HTH
 
Brawler said:
windows repair?
Boot from XP cd, wait for the first menu & press R.
Click to expand...

Pressing R gives me the recovery console which is a command line. What do I type to fix it? Working with DOS is not too much of a problem for me. Also, I do have MiniPE if that can help please let me know which utility to use. Thanks for the tips, much appreciated.
 
sorry, you press R after you have pressed enter at the main screen. As pctech says, it will search for a xp installation, press R and it will re-install windows without losing any data.

Its somewhere there.. done it many times
 
Brawler said:
sorry, you press R after you have pressed enter at the main screen. As pctech says, it will search for a xp installation, press R and it will re-install windows without losing any data.

Its somewhere there.. done it many times
Click to expand...

:D I pulled out my trusty Windows XP Inside Out to make sure :) I have about a 90% success rate. The other 10% the OS is to borked to repair.
 
PCTECH said:
You can try a repair installation. I've had some
Click to expand...

problem is that I do not have access to the original disks, they are manufacturer loaded on a separate partition. i do however have access to a 'different' copy of XP (the one loaded is HOME, I have PRO disks) but its not the one that was installed.
 
well then i hope you have a back-up :P
sorry, cant help you.

EDIT: why not take your harddrive out and boot it as slave in another computer? get all your data off and format..
 
Last edited:
Goobie said:
problem is that I do not have access to the original disks, they are manufacturer loaded on a separate partition. i do however have access to a 'different' copy of XP (the one loaded is HOME, I have PRO disks) but its not the one that was installed.
Click to expand...

If you have Pro installed then you are going to need the Pro CD to do the repair. Which manufacturer? Mustek, Rectron, and Proline all use a basic OEM CD. HP, Compaq, and Dell all use propriatory installation disk and you will have a problem repairing. Most will format on your behalf without giving you much control over the process.

I have successfully repaired Toshiba and Asus using OEM CDs but it doesn't work on all of them.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

For the record, if you're running an illegal Pro installation the repair option is not reliable unless you know the PID which was used to do the installation. I know you said the problem was Home, but I thought I'd throw in some useless information :)
 
Last edited:
I don't work much with Acer, sorry mate. My only contact who does is on holiday until 03JAN2008 :( Which doesn't help you much! I can ask another techie in the area who might know what kind of installation is done on Acer notebooks but I'll only see him after Christmas. I would guess it is a standard OEM install.

WRT MiniPE I don't use it and I'm not that clued up on messing with boot .ini files etc.

At this point you have 2 options: Get a Home CD and try a repair installation. Beg or borrow one, the COA ought to be on the bottom of the notebook and should work with the repair installation. OR, remove the HDD and plug it into another pc in order to back up your data and then re-install Windows using a Home CD.
 
@gdiza
He can't get into Windows.

The best thing to do would be to put your hard drive in another PC, backup all your stuff and then do a clean install of Windows.
Failing that, you could use a Live CD to create a second partition on your hard drive, where you could back up all of your stuff. Then format the original partition (with data safely backed up onto the other partition) and do fresh install of Windows.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X