Changing boot screen has totally trashed XP home installation.

M

Machine Messiah

I have a retail editon of Windows XP Home that came with SP2
slipstreamed.
Yesterday I was playing with a program the lets you change the boot
screen. I must have tried to install a boot screen that's not compatible
with XP SP2 because when I re-booted I got:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys"

I followed the procedure here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822800
with no joy.
I also tried this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;887675
with no luck either.
I even tried:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=315341
with no success.
No matter what I do I still get:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys"
at boot.
I've checked the drive with a utility from the manufacturer, it's fine.
I also ran chkdsk /p. I'm currently testing the ram.

Are there any other files I need to check that the boot screen may have
affected? I thought it was part of ntoskrnl.exe. I've replaced that more
than once from my XP installation disk. Why would changing the boot
screen affect ntfs.sys?
I have 2 folders located on C that I need to keep. Is there any way to
access them and copy them to 1 of my 2 sata drives? The recovery console
for XP Home will not let me access C or any of my other hard drives. If I
could move those folders I could reformate and re-install.
Isn't there any way to boot XP Home to ccommand prompt only? The Recovery
Console just isn't getting the job done.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
tia.
 
G

Guest

You can check and see if the software make a copy of
c:\windows\sytem32ntoskrnl.exe, hopefuly it did, then just delete the current
one and rename the backup copy.

That is the file that must be changed when you want to chage the boot screen

Use something like BartPE to boot and get access to the hard disk.
 
M

Machine Messiah

wwwguy1 said:
You can check and see if the software make a copy of
c:\windows\sytem32ntoskrnl.exe, hopefuly it did, then just delete the current
one and rename the backup copy.
Click to expand...
snip
Yeah, I replaced that with the original from my XP cd, no joy.
That is the file that must be changed when you want to chage the boot screen

Use something like BartPE to boot and get access to the hard disk.
Click to expand...
Thanks, will check it out.
I have a floppy program that will let me move stuff from the ntfs drive
to a fat32 drive, I just don't have anything formatted in fat32.
thanks
 
K

Kelly

From the site/book you followed the procedure from, were there warnings that
this could happen? If so, were there instructions on how to fix, once the
issue occurred? Or did it plainly read, check the MS newsgroups? Am not
trying to sound facetious, but this really needs to be addressed properly.

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com
 
M

Machine Messiah

From the site/book you followed the procedure from, were there warnings that
this could happen? If so, were there instructions on how to fix, once the
issue occurred? Or did it plainly read, check the MS newsgroups? Am not
trying to sound facetious, but this really needs to be addressed properly.
Click to expand...
Oh by all means, feel free be facetious!
Can you think of a dumber way to totally trash Windows?
I wanted to look at something pretty while Windows loads for all of 30
seconds, dumb, dumb, dumb.
At any rate, I think I've found the source of the problem.
Several months ago I know I had this on my PC:
http://www.tgtsoft.com/prod_sxp.php
Today on Google groups I found this:
http://tinyurl.com/9uuqd
There are several sites/freeware programs for messing around with XP boot
screens. I can't think of any that didn't warn that you can really trash
XP when changing this screen. I have noone but myself to blame for this
mess. When I uninstalled Style XP I should have used my installation logs
to undo all the changes it made to my computer
I think I used this program:
http://www.bootxp.net/download.htm
to change the boot screen that Style XP installed.
No one suggested I go to MS news groups for help, I just spend most of my
computer time on usenet already.
Finally, thanks very much for having this on your site:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm
I printed it out and it's been a big help.
Is there anyway to tweak the XP home recovery console to make it more
flexible? I need to edit my boot.ini file and it's in the root directory.
Thanks again.
 

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