windows shut down to prevent damage to your computer

G

Guest

Today my pc suddenly displayed a message like in the subject line. It's a
Dell Dimension 8400 running XP Home which I have had for about 2 years now.
It will not boot up at all. I unhooked everything except monitor, mouse and
keyboard and put XP CD in CD drive and tried to repair from there. I've
gotten several variations on messages about Page Fault In Nonpaged Area. Once
after trying the repair I got a message that said hard disk is corrupt. The
last time I tried to repair I get message that Problem seems to be caused by
the following file: ntfs.sys. Technical Info: Stop: 0x00000050 (0xC1C3C960,
0x00000001, 0xF8036C14, 0x00000000)
ntfs.sys - Address F8036C14 base at F80036000, Datestamp 41107eea.

I have not tried to reinstall XP in my windows partition. I'm scared of the
message about possibly losing data in the My Documents folders. I've not been
dilligent about backing up stuff there lately and have pictures I'd hate to
lose. I see that I can create a new partition to install XP into. Is that a
good idea? If so, how do I get the PC to boot from the new partition and XP
installation? I'd really like to retrieve my data files, then I'd be happy to
replace the hard drive if necessary.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.
 
P

Patrick Keenan

magee said:
Today my pc suddenly displayed a message like in the subject line. It's a
Dell Dimension 8400 running XP Home which I have had for about 2 years
now.
It will not boot up at all. I unhooked everything except monitor, mouse
and
keyboard and put XP CD in CD drive and tried to repair from there. I've
gotten several variations on messages about Page Fault In Nonpaged Area.
Once
after trying the repair I got a message that said hard disk is corrupt.
The
last time I tried to repair I get message that Problem seems to be caused
by
the following file: ntfs.sys. Technical Info: Stop: 0x00000050
(0xC1C3C960,
0x00000001, 0xF8036C14, 0x00000000)
ntfs.sys - Address F8036C14 base at F80036000, Datestamp 41107eea.

I have not tried to reinstall XP in my windows partition. I'm scared of
the
message about possibly losing data in the My Documents folders. I've not
been
dilligent about backing up stuff there lately and have pictures I'd hate
to
lose. I see that I can create a new partition to install XP into. Is that
a
good idea? If so, how do I get the PC to boot from the new partition and
XP
installation? I'd really like to retrieve my data files, then I'd be happy
to
replace the hard drive if necessary.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Apparently the disk is corrupt, and you can maybe fix it with chkdsk, but
this may also put your data at risk. If you don't have good current
backups, I would not suggest the chkdsk approach first.

You probably cannot create a new partition on that drive for an XP install.
There isn't likely to be space.

Since you have an XP install CD, I would suggest that the simplest and
safest thing, and the fastest way to recover to a working machine, is to get
another hard disk (where I am, 250 gig hard disks are around $75). Remove
and set aside the old disk, set the jumpers on the new on the same way, and
plug in the new drive.

Install XP to the new drive, install the drivers from your driver CDs, then
get SP2 (if you don't have it on the XP install disk already). Then the get
the rest of the XP updates. Then, install your antivirus and security
apps. Install your basic office software, and update it.

Then, attach the old drive. A good way to do this is to use a USB2 drive
case - you can get these starting around $20 when you get the new drive.
You can also attach the old drive to the internal cables as long as there's
space.

Ultimately, when connected, XP will recognise the old disk and you can
attempt to simply copy the data you want off it to the new drive. You may,
or may not, have to consider use of data recovery software, but *do not*
attempt to use chkdsk before trying to get the data off by other means.

HTH
-pk
 
P

Poprivet

magee said:
Today my pc suddenly displayed a message like in the subject line.
It's a Dell Dimension 8400 running XP Home which I have had for about
2 years now. It will not boot up at all. I unhooked everything except
monitor, mouse and keyboard and put XP CD in CD drive and tried to
repair from there. I've gotten several variations on messages about
Page Fault In Nonpaged Area. Once after trying the repair I got a
message that said hard disk is corrupt. The last time I tried to
repair I get message that Problem seems to be caused by the following
file: ntfs.sys. Technical Info: Stop: 0x00000050 (0xC1C3C960,
0x00000001, 0xF8036C14, 0x00000000)
ntfs.sys - Address F8036C14 base at F80036000, Datestamp 41107eea.

I have not tried to reinstall XP in my windows partition. I'm scared
of the message about possibly losing data in the My Documents
folders. I've not been dilligent about backing up stuff there lately
and have pictures I'd hate to lose. I see that I can create a new
partition to install XP into. Is that a good idea? If so, how do I
get the PC to boot from the new partition and XP installation? I'd
really like to retrieve my data files, then I'd be happy to replace
the hard drive if necessary.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

You're kind of confusing: You say you've backed up your pics, but then
you're afraid to lost them? Perhaps you should try again and be more
specific and less wordy.

Most important right now would be to do a backup of ALL Of your data so you
don't lose anything, just in case that drive is going south.

It's probably best to do a complete, clean install of XP right now unless
you can figure things out. Backup all your data to someplace safe, then
set to boot from your CD drive, toss the XP CD in and boot from it.
If no problems come back, you'll be all set. If they do, you'll be more
able to figure out what they are.

Booting from the XP CD:
Delete and recreate the partition/s and then follow the screen instructions.
Takes about an hour and a half. Then you can reinstall all the programs you
want to use and put your data back on the drive if all runs well.

HTH

Pop`

PS - If you had an imaging program, it would be just a CD to boot from and a
keyclick or two to reinstall EVERYTHING on that drive. Check out Norton's
Ghost from Symantec.com or True Image from ; hmm, forgot the URL; google
will get it though or someone here is likely to add it.
 
G

Guest

Thanks to all who replied yesterday! I was leaning toward getting a new hard
drive as I thought that's where the problem was. So I got a new one today,
put it in the case and attempted to install XP from my CD. It started to
install then, then I got the same error message as before (see original post
below). Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? I can't get
booted up to turn off anything to start looking for software conflicts. There
is no new hardware to unhook. Any ideas what a problem with ntfs.sys could be?

Thanks again.
 

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