Can I repair the OS hard drive from another computer on my computer?

[Rob]

Something the children have done has crashed my wife's computer. It won't
boot up and it will not allow me to do a selective boot up or access any of
the restore functions. Further, when I attempt to boot up from the CD (I've
tried both, my XP Pro cd and my Norton Systemworks 2005 cd) it loops me
right back to the crash error. The error was cannot locate system hard drive
due to a corrupt or missing system32 config or sys file.

I removed the hard drive and installed it on my system, which has labeled it
D drive. I can access all directories, etc. Is there a way for me to repair
or restore her hard drive using my system?

All hard drives: Windows XP Pro SP 2

Many thanks in advance, Rob.

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Please see if the following article helps:

"How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from
starting"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

 

[fj]

Something the children have done has crashed my wife's computer. It won't
boot up and it will not allow me to do a selective boot up or access any
of the restore functions. Further, when I attempt to boot up from the CD
(I've tried both, my XP Pro cd and my Norton Systemworks 2005 cd) it loops
me right back to the crash error.

Could you explain more about how you get back to the crash when using the
Win XP install CD? The install CD loads it's own 'OS' into memory. So, if
the pc is crashing while the install CD is loading XP Setup, it would
indicate a hardware issue.

 

[jonah]

Could you explain more about how you get back to the crash when using the
Win XP install CD? The install CD loads it's own 'OS' into memory. So, if
the pc is crashing while the install CD is loading XP Setup, it would
indicate a hardware issue.

Hardware issue looks more likely to me especially if its crashing
using the recovery console OS and it can't find a HDD - Recovery
Console reads all HDD partitions unless it can't find an HDD in which
case it will crash for that precise reason
No don't think its possible because I think its MOBO or Cables. The
HDD seems OK as you can read files on it with your PC.

What did your kids do exactly - smack it with a big hammer?Jonah

 

[NobodyMan]

Something the children have done has crashed my wife's computer. It won't
boot up and it will not allow me to do a selective boot up or access any of
the restore functions. Further, when I attempt to boot up from the CD (I've
tried both, my XP Pro cd and my Norton Systemworks 2005 cd) it loops me
right back to the crash error. The error was cannot locate system hard drive
due to a corrupt or missing system32 config or sys file.

I removed the hard drive and installed it on my system, which has labeled it
D drive. I can access all directories, etc. Is there a way for me to repair
or restore her hard drive using my system?

All hard drives: Windows XP Pro SP 2

Many thanks in advance, Rob.

If booting from the CD is allowing Windows, on the HD, to start, then
you aren't properly booting from the CD.

Are you restarting with the CD in the drive and then just sitting
there, expecting setup on the CD to start automatically? This usually
won't happen. To boot from CD, most BIOS routines require interaction
from you - you'll see a message like "Press any key to boot from
CD..." and if you don't, it moves on to the next device specified in
BIOS and tries to boot.

 

[Rob]

Many thanks to everyone for your responses. I followed the outlined
procedures in this
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545 article.

But rather than using the Recovery Console I was actually using my computer.
It worked like a dream.

Again, thank you folks and take care, Rob.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

This reply is "orphaned!" Please keep any/all replies in the same newsgroup
thread. This will help "others" who may get/have the same problem that you
had.

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

This reply is "orphaned!" Please keep any/all replies in the same
newsgroup thread. This will help "others" who may get/have the same
problem that you had.

Hi,

It is Outlook Express that gives you this impression. Rob did post to
the same thread (but he changed the subject text).

Mozilla newsreader threads the post correctly, showing that he posted
to the same thread, replying to his original post, and so does the
"References" part of the header information.

Google newsgroup archive also threads the post correctly:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/mi...d8af7894afe/3cade18abe9c19b2#3cade18abe9c19b2