I tried repairing my Operating System, and when it got to the second stage,
it said it was copying files. I instantly restarted my computer, out of fear
that I would never be able to access my user account. (From a previous
experience.) Now, whenever I try to load that operating system, it says that
setup is restarting.... then my computer reboots. (I guess my computer is
pretty worried too ) My question is: Is there any way to stop the setup or
abort it?

Try booting with a floppy boot diskette:
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/ If you can boot with the floppy boot
diskette then you can edit the boot.ini file and remove this line:

c:\$win_nt$.~bt\bootsect.dat="Windows XP Installation/Upgrade"

Then delete the following folders at the root of the System Drive:

$win_nt$.~bt
$win_nt$.~ls

John

thegammingperson1994 wrote:

> I tried repairing my Operating System, and when it got to the second stage,
> it said it was copying files. I instantly restarted my computer, out of fear
> that I would never be able to access my user account. (From a previous
> experience.) Now, whenever I try to load that operating system, it says that
> setup is restarting.... then my computer reboots. (I guess my computer is
> pretty worried too ) My question is: Is there any way to stop the setup or
> abort it?

"thegammingperson1994" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote
>I tried repairing my Operating System, and when it got to the second stage,
> it said it was copying files. I instantly restarted my computer, out of
> fear
> that I would never be able to access my user account. (From a previous
> experience.) Now, whenever I try to load that operating system, it says
> that
> setup is restarting.... then my computer reboots. (I guess my computer is
> pretty worried too ) My question is: Is there any way to stop the setup
> or
> abort it?

Is there a full and complete backup of important data on the drive? If
there is why did you stop the repair process? If not then backup first.
Here are some options on how to do that.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

After the data is backed up then look at ways to fix this situation.

One option is to examine the boot.ini file using a Bart PE disk and remove
any reference to setup, then see if it boots. Another is to redo the repair
install and let it complete.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

John John, that looked very promising, only the link is broken. (Or 404.)
Rock, will editing the boot file really make it skip the setup?
The reason I had tried to reinstall the operating system is because I had
(in itallics) accidentally deleted the boot partition on my hard drive.
Everythings better now, but... I guess you get the idea.
So say that I can successfully boot up to a copy of the operating system on
the same harddrive, what should I delete from the boot.ini?
(I will try to copy and paste it here.)
Thanks!

Here's a copy as to what my boot file looks like:
(Anything about the setup?)
P.S. The last one, windows, is the OS that I'm having problems with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect

"thegammingperson1994" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> Here's a copy as to what my boot file looks like:
> (Anything about the setup?)
> P.S. The last one, windows, is the OS that I'm having problems with.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> [boot loader]
> timeout=30
> default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1
> [operating systems]
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS1="Microsoft Windows XP Home
> Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
> Edition" /fastdetect

No I don't see it in there, so that's not it.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Well, I was just thinking about it, and maybe I should recreate the problem.
If I haven't said this already, I had deleted the boot partition on my hard
drive, which started this all. Then I should be able to do a repair without
any problems. How does that sound?

thegammingperson1994 wrote:

> Well, I was just thinking about it, and maybe I should recreate the problem.
> If I haven't said this already, I had deleted the boot partition on my hard
> drive, which started this all. Then I should be able to do a repair without
> any problems. How does that sound?

There are often misunderstanding about the System and Boot Partitions,
the Microsoft terminology on these is not exactly intuitive:

*System Partition*
The system partition refers to the disk volume that contains the
hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr,
Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com. The system partition can be, but does not
have to be, the same volume as the boot partition.


*Boot Partition*
The boot partition contains the Windows operating system and its support
files. The boot partition can be, but does not have to be, the same as
the system partition. There will be one, and only one, system partition,
but there will be one boot partition for each operating system in a
multi-boot system.

So, which partition did you delete?

John

Well, when I looked at it, there was the main partition, with all my data on
it, then there was this little partition. Looking at what you just said, I'm
guessing that it must have been the boot partition. When I deleted it, and my
computer finished it's POST and startup tests, it would always say: PRESS A
TO REBOOT. Sounds like to me I deleted the boot partition. Now, what I'm
thinking of doing now, is to delete the boot partition again, (or whatever
that little partition is.) And repair the operating system. I'm guessing that
it will forget that it was trying to repair originally, then I'll be able to
do it again. Does that sound OK?

Do you think we should contact each other by messenger? That would be a lot
faster. My messenger username is (E-Mail Removed).