xp setup says partition Unknown. Previous working xp will not boo

[Guest]

Windows XP Pro. This was a working laptop about 6 months old. Had an issue
with moisture. When computer tries to boot, it gets past the bios and then
it's just stuck on a blinking cursor. XP never begins to load. All
diagnostics say the harddrive is ok (no bad sectors, etc).

I put my XP CD in and booted from the CD. The recovery module didn't work
so I went to the Install and it found the partition. The XP CD says the
partition is "Unknown".

How can it turn in back into a NTFS file system so can start the computer
(windows) at least once so I can back up data? It seems to me I could
either somehow fix it with a utility, or possibly start Windows with a
bootable CD or even USB Flash drive just long enough to get the data off.
Not sure what to do.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Steve

 

[Ron Martell]

Windows XP Pro. This was a working laptop about 6 months old. Had an issue
with moisture. When computer tries to boot, it gets past the bios and then
it's just stuck on a blinking cursor. XP never begins to load. All
diagnostics say the harddrive is ok (no bad sectors, etc).

I put my XP CD in and booted from the CD. The recovery module didn't work
so I went to the Install and it found the partition. The XP CD says the
partition is "Unknown".

How can it turn in back into a NTFS file system so can start the computer
(windows) at least once so I can back up data? It seems to me I could
either somehow fix it with a utility, or possibly start Windows with a
bootable CD or even USB Flash drive just long enough to get the data off.
Not sure what to do.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Steve

It sounds like the partition record has been corrupted in some way.
There is a free utility called MBRWORK that is available from the free
downloads section of www.bootitng.com that might be able to recover it
for you.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Guest]

Thanks Ron.

I downloaded the file. As it says in the download, I believe it when they
say it's for advanced users. I think I could make my way through it, but I
have a few questions.

Before I get to them, I did think of something else. Other people at work
have almost identical computers. Could I use one of their computers to make
an emergency bootable floppy and try that? I found this in an article for
making the floppy:

xcopy c:\boot.ini a: /h
xcopy c:\ntdetect.com a: /h
xcopy c:\ntldr a: /h

Should I try the bootable floppy first, or the MBRWORK program, or ?

Back to the MBRWORK program. Here are the options MBRWORK has. Which
one(s) do you recommend I try?

1 - Backup the first track on a hard drive.
2 - Restore the backup file.
3 - Reset the EMBR area to all zeros.
4 - Reset the MBR are to all zeros.
5 - Install standard MBR Code
6 - Set a partition active (avail on the command line too)
7 - Work with multiple hard drives.
8 - Remove EZ-Drive (You must boot directly to a diskette (by passing
ez-drive)
for this option to show)
9 - Edit MBR partition entry values.
A - If no partitions exist in the MBR and no EMBR exists then this option
will allow you to recover lost FAT, HPFS, NTFS, and Extened partitions.
C - Capture up to 64 disk sectors to a file.
R - Restore up to 64 disk sectors from a file. This feature should only
be used by those who completely understand what they are doing!
T - Transfer/Copy sectors from disk to disk. This feature should only
be used by those who completely understand what they are doing!
P - Compare sectors.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks again.

Steve