View Full Version : Can't boot, wont boot
Have a MESH shuffle system, Windows xp professional that wont boot.
Before it stopped booting it was having problems shutting down (would only get so far). Then it was not recognising the usb ports although the system said everything was fine.
Will get to a choice of safe boot, normal boot etc. Choose one the system moves along and then stops.
It comes up with a message
!!!warning!!!
Disk Boot sector is to be modified
Type "Y" to accept, any key to abort
Award Software, Inc
searched for the 'any key' (oops sorry bad time for a joke)
Hit enter (not wanting to modify the boot sector)
When trying to boot in safe mode we get to
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system 32\drivers\Mup.sys
the system stayed that way over night.
When trying to run the System Recovery I get
STOP: 000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session Manage Initialization system process erminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000)
The system has been shut down
Any help would be appreciated (if only to get the data off the sytsem)
Thanks
sadly i cannot say what s wrong with windows, if it will not boot to windows using the safe mode option, in my opinion you have big problems, i hope i am wrong, as my first impressions is that your hard drive has developed a bad sector (best descriced as a scratch on a record/CD)
one (long winded) way you can get the data, (or try) is by getting a hold of a floppy MS DOS boot disk, making sure that in your bios settings (pressing F1 or Del when you first switch on the computer and being shown a blue screen) that it tries to boot from the floppy drive first. its one of the settings. You can always exit and NOT save any changes if your unsure.
You then switch on your computer wth the disk in. From here you will have an ms dos prompt screen that you should be able to navigate your harddrive with, if you can navigate most folders fine you can then retrieve the information from it.
First you will have to type C: and press enter.
From here, the only commands you need are DIR - this lists all the files in the curent directory, and CD ???? where the ??? is a directory name. and CD.. ths takes you backwards one directory.
after searching a while and not getting any errors, it will seem your are ok to copy files off the drive.
But unless you have another computer you will need an understanding friend to help you.
You will need to take out the harddrive of your computer and change the jumper settings on it to make it a slave drve.
You will then need to fit the drive into your friends machine, load it in the bios screen, you can then eventually copy all the files onto your friends hard drive. once you have everything you can then format and reinstall windows on your hardrive and retrieve your information from your friends hard drive via various means, them burning a CD being the easiest.
I hope this helps and doesnt scare or confuse you too much.
or maybe helps someone come up with a much simpler answer.. :D
Wishing you all the best...
If you need further help or assistane, feel free to PM me.
j4bberw0ck
26-Dec-06, 17:18
Have you installed any programs or applications, or any hardware? If you've installed any hardware, remove it and try a restart (though it may be too late for that - as Stumurf suggests). If you have a separate soundcard or network card, definitely remove it from the Motherboard, and disconnect your internet connexion by unplugging the router or modem.
Do you have a proper WinXP OS disc, or do Mesh distribute with a "Recovery Disk"? If you can get hold of a proper MS disc (not a copy) you can try the recovery utility - start the pc and immediately and repeatedly hit the "Del" key (I think it's "Del" for Award BIOSes but if not, try F2) which should get you to the BIOS setup, where you need to tell the PC to attempt to boot firstly from the CD/DVD drive (from memory, I think it's on the first page you see - Boot Order, it's usually called). Save the settings once changed (hit F10 and confirm y ), open the CD, stick the XP disk in, power off, and then power on. It should boot into Windows from the XP disk. You may have to hit a key to confirm a CD boot so keep an eye on it.
If you can get that far, there's some hope; I'd try (first) the FIXMBR command from the Window Recovery Console, which will rewrite the Boot Sector. If that doesn't fix the problem, you need to restart the pc again and get into the full Windows Recovery Utility which will reinstall XP over the top of your old installation and rewrite all the system files and drivers. It's tricky (ie not very intuitive) to get in to, so if you can grab hold of someone who's done it before, do so.
Failing that, let me know and I'll restart one of my pcs and get into it so I can give you a step-by-step guide.
If a full recovery reinstall doesn't fix it, there's a major problem, I'm afraid.
If funds permit and you have the inclination, once it's working OK again, get a copy of Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage (a freebie trial is available from Acronis) and back up the whole system to an external USB hard disk - then disconnect it from the pc and keep it safe.
Hope this helps.
You will need to take out the harddrive of your computer and change the jumper settings on it to make it a slave drve.
You will then need to fit the drive into your friends machine, load it in the bios screen, you can then eventually copy all the files onto your friends hard drive. once you have everything you can then format and reinstall windows on your hardrive and retrieve your information from your friends hard drive via various means, them burning a CD being the easiest.
As it happens I've just had the same problem on a laptop running w2k. I booted from a DOS floppy then copied all my important files to another computer over a serial cable using Laplink 3 which is freely available on the web and has a directory browswer.
Don't know if it would work with NTFS and filenames more than 8 characters long get the DOS version.
Bobinovich
26-Dec-06, 21:25
You could also try the Repair facility available when you boot to the Windows XP CD - it takes you to a DOS style screen (i.e. white text on black background) where you can run the CHKDSK command (chkdsk /r) which will scan your hard drive and automatically repair any problems it comes across. Once it's done (can take a while) remove the CD and try re-booting your PC.
Let us know how you get on.
Success. Thank you all very much for the advice.
The disk I had was the mesh recovery disk. Loaded it and followed the on screen instructions and ...it didn't work.
Searched the mesh site and they suggested not recovering but following the reload option which will leads you to a different recovery screen.
An hour later back to XP but pre-service pack 2. Explorer is not working so can't get online.
3 DVD's later all important files are off the PC and time to rebuild.
Downloaded SP2 and Explorer 7 on a different PC, loaded them onto the mesh system, re-registered windows
Back on the Internet, updated drivers, re-registered windows (again).
Everything seems to be working, better than before. Feels like the days of win 98 when you had to reload every 6 months or so to keep it running smoothly. Which is odd you would think we would be past that.
Running a check disk now just to see if everything is fine.
Thanks again.
Tristan
j4bberw0ck
27-Dec-06, 12:06
Glad you're sorted. Hadn't realised that some recovery disks (inventions of the devil!) have a "reload OS only" function. Maybe they're not so bad after all!
Can you create D: / E: partitions on your main disk (if you only have the one) to store your data? If you make them FAT32 partitions (so having C: as NTFS which XP prefers) you'll lose the security but gain the ability to find and copy files easily. Doesn't help if the disk dies, though, so I stand by the recommendation to get a USB2 hard disk for backup - I'm told some of them come with a copy of Acronis or similar ('course I bought one that didn't :roll: ).
Everything seems to be working, better than before. Feels like the days of win 98 when you had to reload every 6 months or so to keep it running smoothly. Which is odd you would think we would be past that
Not past that yet ... I would suggest that if you install and uninstall a lot of software that you rebuild your system every 12 months or so to get rid of the junk that's left lying around.
Just rebuilt both my laptop and desktop here in the last week but will need to do it again when Vista arrives in the January.
Glad you got the problem sorted. Like j4bberwock I haven't see a recovery disk that didn't wipe the system. Maybe the manufacturers have started thinking at last!
Glad you got the problem sorted. Like j4bberwock I haven't see a recovery disk that didn't wipe the system. Maybe the manufacturers have started thinking at last!
On w2k and I presume XP you can recover without wiping the disk if you can get a DOS prompt and know the product ID. Just go the the i386 directory and type "winnt".
On w2k and I presume XP you can recover without wiping the disk if you can get a DOS prompt and know the product ID. Just go the the i386 directory and type "winnt".
Hi Fred,
That can be done if the recovery disk is built with the same structure as the Windows disks. You'll also need a DOS boot disk with CD Rom drivers to get access to the disk. You'll also need the DOS commands to navigate the structure of the disk.
Hi Fred,
That can be done if the recovery disk is built with the same structure as the Windows disks. You'll also need a DOS boot disk with CD Rom drivers to get access to the disk. You'll also need the DOS commands to navigate the structure of the disk.
On my system everything you need is on the hard disk in c:\i386, 259meg of it compressed.
I got as far as entering the product ID but couldn't read the sticker on the bottom of the laptop, it hasn't aged too well. It wouldn't run from a DOS 6.2 boot disk but I got it to run from a Windows 98 recovery disk.
As for navigating in DOS I've been doing that since before Windows was invented, still prefer DOS to Windows for a lot of things. The only problem was the keyboard wasn't mapped so the "\" and "|" took a bit of finding.
On my system everything you need is on the hard disk in c:\i386, 259meg of it compressed.
I got as far as entering the product ID but couldn't read the sticker on the bottom of the laptop, it hasn't aged too well. It wouldn't run from a DOS 6.2 boot disk but I got it to run from a Windows 98 recovery disk.
As for navigating in DOS I've been doing that since before Windows was invented, still prefer DOS to Windows for a lot of things. The only problem was the keyboard wasn't mapped so the "\" and "|" took a bit of finding.
Hi Fred,
If you're at the stage when you're using a recovery disk access to the C: drive usually isn't possible. The vast majority of PC's I see don't have the I386 folder on the hard drive anyway, although it's the first thing I copy on after installing the operating system.
Like you I've been using Dos since before Windows came around (Dos 3.3 in 1987 in my case). However we're not in the majority and I wouldn't ask anybody who's had a PC for a few years and uses it for email and the internet to start entering commands into a black screen!
The keyboard problem you have is down to Dos loading the US keyboard layout by default. You'll also find the " and @ swapped around.
Hi Fred,
Like you I've been using Dos since before Windows came around (Dos 3.3 in 1987 in my case). However we're not in the majority and I wouldn't ask anybody who's had a PC for a few years and uses it for email and the internet to start entering commands into a black screen!
Ah then you may be able to help me with a problem I'm having with my DOS text editor, which worked fine before I reloaded windows but now it loses the environment variables when I shell out.
The error message is "Specified COMMAND search directory bad." but I'm pretty sure it's an environment space problem, if I load a DOS prompt with "command /E:1024" then start the editor it works but as what I do in the properties dialog, autoexec.nt or config.nt it refuses to work.
Ah then you may be able to help me with a problem I'm having with my DOS text editor, which worked fine before I reloaded windows but now it loses the environment variables when I shell out.
The error message is "Specified COMMAND search directory bad." but I'm pretty sure it's an environment space problem, if I load a DOS prompt with "command /E:1024" then start the editor it works but as what I do in the properties dialog, autoexec.nt or config.nt it refuses to work.
Hi Fred,
If you're sure it's an environment problem you can increase the environment space used by command.com when it's executed. If you right-click on it (it's in the %windir%\system32 folder) and go to the memory tab, in there you can change the initial environment size that's used. You can also edit the _default.pif file which should also work (although Microsoft don't recommend adjusting the _default.pif but instead copy it to create your own).
If I were using straight DOS I'd use the SHELL command within CONFIG.SYS to set this. The SHELL command still works within CONFIG.NT, however you can only use CMD.EXE within it (according to Microsoft).
I'm sure you know all this if you're running DOS under Windows so I don't think it's going to solve your problem!
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