Boot sector clobbered?

[A Watcher]

My wife's laptop won't boot up. I can access the files on the HD by
using a linux livecd. That tells me that the file table is still OK so
there must be something wrong with the boot sector. Either it got
overwritten or it has gone bad. We can't find the original Windows CD
that came with it. What can I do?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Guest]

any errors displayed?

 

[A Watcher]

any errors displayed?

The message says "We apologize for the incovenience, but Windows did not
start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have
caused this."

I'm beginning to think that some Windows files were overwritten or
damaged. I created a boot cd from a different PC and it tried to boot.
It first did a disk check and repaired a couple file links and then
proceeded to give me the same error message. None of the modes works.

The Knoppix cd still works so I can access the files. She uses MSN,
though, and it doesn't store the saved messages in text files. I can
recover the other stuff if I have to.

 

[Guest]

How to fix a computer that won't start
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/support/nostart.mspx#2

 

[Patrick Keenan]

The message says "We apologize for the incovenience, but Windows did not
start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have
caused this."

I'm beginning to think that some Windows files were overwritten or
damaged. I created a boot cd from a different PC and it tried to boot. It
first did a disk check and repaired a couple file links and then proceeded
to give me the same error message. None of the modes works.

The Knoppix cd still works so I can access the files. She uses MSN,
though, and it doesn't store the saved messages in text files. I can
recover the other stuff if I have to.

Would suggest that you make that backup first. Then, figure out how to get
a replacement CD to do a repair install.

HTH
-pk

 

[A Watcher]

Thanks for the microsoft link. Perhaps I can find something useful
there.

 

[A Watcher]

Would suggest that you make that backup first. Then, figure out how to get
a replacement CD to do a repair install.

HTH
-pk

Yes I will certainly save what I can before trying any fixes! Thank
goodness for Knoppix.