Attn: Ken Blake, MVP

[Buffalo]

A friend of mine has a Compaq Desktop with XP Home and he made the six Restore
(?) CD's when he first got it.
It will not reboot and not go back to a previous recovery point. He tried to use
the CDs to Restore it. It will go through the first CD and then tell him to
reboot, but when he reboots, it says 'invalid system disk'.
I gave him an old tower that had XP on it and he put his HDD into it as a
Primary Slave and he can see his old HDD as a F and a G drive, but says it
doesn't access it or display it properly.
Buffalo
PS: I had him dl, update, and install Avast! (free) on the good HDD and have it
check the old HDD (it hasn't finished yet).
I also had him run a diagnostic check on his old HDD with the mfg's diagnostic
software and it came out OK.
PS: Avast! found one virus on his old HDD and deleted it.

Second part of message:

Do you have any idea why he cannot use the six CDs he created (when he first
acquired the PC) to reinstall or repair his Windows XP Home OS? Perhaps it was
virus caused.
He ran the HDD's mfg diagnostic disc and it showed no problem with the HDD.
(It's a WD).
The PC he bought at WalMart was a Compaq and it was a display model. It did not
come with any CDs.
It was running just fine for over a year.

PS:I had him dl , update and run an on-demand scan by Kaspersky and it found
about 15 more items than Avast! and deleted them.
Thanks

 

[Rock]

A friend of mine has a Compaq Desktop with XP Home and he made the six Restore
(?) CD's when he first got it.
It will not reboot and not go back to a previous recovery point. He tried to use
the CDs to Restore it. It will go through the first CD and then tell him to
reboot, but when he reboots, it says 'invalid system disk'.
I gave him an old tower that had XP on it and he put his HDD into it as a
Primary Slave and he can see his old HDD as a F and a G drive, but says it
doesn't access it or display it properly.
Buffalo
PS: I had him dl, update, and install Avast! (free) on the good HDD and have it
check the old HDD (it hasn't finished yet).
I also had him run a diagnostic check on his old HDD with the mfg's diagnostic
software and it came out OK.
PS: Avast! found one virus on his old HDD and deleted it.

Second part of message:

Do you have any idea why he cannot use the six CDs he created (when he first
acquired the PC) to reinstall or repair his Windows XP Home OS? Perhaps it was
virus caused.
He ran the HDD's mfg diagnostic disc and it showed no problem with the HDD.
(It's a WD).
The PC he bought at WalMart was a Compaq and it was a display model. It did not
come with any CDs.
It was running just fine for over a year.

PS:I had him dl , update and run an on-demand scan by Kaspersky and it found
about 15 more items than Avast! and deleted them.
Thanks

I can't say why his restore CDs work. Did he ever test them before to
see? Maybe it was a bad burn originally.

For the problem of viewing the files on the hard as slave in another
computer it could be a problem of permissions. See this link on how to
take ownership of files and folders:

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421

 

[Bob I]

Is the CD supposed to be removed at the point of reboot? So as to boot
from the HD? And then the rest of the CD's are requested in order? You
would be time ahead checking with tech support as to the method the
"restore CD's" are to be used.

 

[Buffalo]

Is the CD supposed to be removed at the point of reboot? So as to boot
from the HD? And then the rest of the CD's are requested in order? You
would be time ahead checking with tech support as to the method the
"restore CD's" are to be used.

Thanks for the reply.
I did remove the CD just before rebooting and it said invalid system disk upon
reboot.
I don't believe he has any free tech support.
I may have him try to use the six restore CDs while his 'problem HDD' is in
another XP machine as a Primary Slave.