Error loading OS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Auds
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A

Auds

This is the message that I am getting this morning having closed down last
night without any signs of trouble. Mind you, the PC has locked up on me
twice in the last week, both times when I returned to it after a lengthy
period of idling. Consequently, I cannot even use F8 to get into Safe Mode
or Last Good Configuration.

This is a 2.8GHz PC with 512MB RAM. I have two 80GB hard disks, the first
having Windows on C: and data on the D: partition. The second drive G: is a
backup of D:.

I tried using the XP Pro CD to repair the problem and was surprised to find
that Recovery Console shows Windows drive D:, instead of C:, D: is shown as
E: and G: is shown as C:.

I ran chkdsk /p on each of the drives and they all showed fixes but only on
the first run.

I then ran bootcfg /list, which said there was no data to show.

When I tried bootcfg /scan, it said it could not complete possibly due to a
corrupt system.

I then looked at fixmbr and got the warning that this computer appears to
have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. I also read on the
Internet that fixmbr should not be used if there is the possibility of a
virus in the system.

This all sounds rather dire to me. Can anyone offer any reassurance?

Thanks,

brianf
 
Auds said:
This is the message that I am getting this morning having closed down last
night without any signs of trouble. Mind you, the PC has locked up on me
twice in the last week, both times when I returned to it after a lengthy
period of idling. Consequently, I cannot even use F8 to get into Safe Mode
or Last Good Configuration.

This is a 2.8GHz PC with 512MB RAM. I have two 80GB hard disks, the first
having Windows on C: and data on the D: partition. The second drive G: is
a backup of D:.

I tried using the XP Pro CD to repair the problem and was surprised to
find that Recovery Console shows Windows drive D:, instead of C:, D: is
shown as E: and G: is shown as C:.

I ran chkdsk /p on each of the drives and they all showed fixes but only
on the first run.

I then ran bootcfg /list, which said there was no data to show.

When I tried bootcfg /scan, it said it could not complete possibly due to
a corrupt system.

I then looked at fixmbr and got the warning that this computer appears to
have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. I also read on the
Internet that fixmbr should not be used if there is the possibility of a
virus in the system.

This all sounds rather dire to me. Can anyone offer any reassurance?
Click to expand...

First question deal with. Is there a full and complete backup of data on
the drive? If not do that first.

Here are some options for how to do this.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

Now that the data is secure, try the other fixes. The initial error message
suggests a problem with the MBR and your later info is more confirmation.

I would run fixmbr and fixboot from the recovery console.

Also at some point download a drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive
manufacturer's web site. That will create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot
from it and run the diagnostics.
 
Rock said:
First question deal with. Is there a full and complete backup of data on
the drive? If not do that first.

Here are some options for how to do this.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you
can copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

Now that the data is secure, try the other fixes. The initial error
message suggests a problem with the MBR and your later info is more
confirmation.

I would run fixmbr and fixboot from the recovery console.

Also at some point download a drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive
manufacturer's web site. That will create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot
from it and run the diagnostics.
Click to expand...
Many thanks for those tips, Rock. In fact, you got there before me as I was
just writing a response to you in my other thread "System file missing or
corrupt." Yes, believe it or not, I now have this problem on my own PC only
a week after my daughter's problem - and she lives 5 miles away so I don't
think there is any direct connection.
In answer to the above, yes the the data is backed up to yesterday on what
is, in principle, the G: drive. So, I guess I'd better bite the bullet and
try fixmbr and fixboot. I'm just a bit concerned about why this has happened
and is there a virus in there? It's difficult to see how because I'm running
a US Robotics NAT router, have the Sygate Personal Firewall and AVG, as well
as Spybot.

brianf
 
Auds said:
Many thanks for those tips, Rock. In fact, you got there before me as I
was just writing a response to you in my other thread "System file missing
or corrupt." Yes, believe it or not, I now have this problem on my own PC
only a week after my daughter's problem - and she lives 5 miles away so I
don't think there is any direct connection.
In answer to the above, yes the the data is backed up to yesterday on what
is, in principle, the G: drive. So, I guess I'd better bite the bullet and
try fixmbr and fixboot. I'm just a bit concerned about why this has
happened and is there a virus in there? It's difficult to see how because
I'm running a US Robotics NAT router, have the Sygate Personal Firewall
and AVG, as well as Spybot.
Click to expand...

It could just be coincidence that this corruption occurred on both systems.
Is the Sygate Personal Firewall from Symantec or is that the old one from
Sygate before they were bought out?

I'm not an expert on boot sector viruses. If you want to get more advice
about that aspect I suggest you post to microsoft.public.security.virus
 
Rock said:
It could just be coincidence that this corruption occurred on both
systems. Is the Sygate Personal Firewall from Symantec or is that the old
one from Sygate before they were bought out?

I'm not an expert on boot sector viruses. If you want to get more advice
about that aspect I suggest you post to microsoft.public.security.virus
Click to expand...
It is the earlier one.

brianf
 
You need to move to something else. That hasn't been updated in a long
time. Look at Sunbelt Software's Kerio Personal Firewall, Comodo Personal
Firewall, and Zone Alarm. I use Kerio paid (but low cost) on one system and
Comodo (free) on another.
 
Now I know what happened. Because I had no idea that XP, for some peculiar
reason, has decided that my G: drive is in functional terms the C: drive it
evidently has to carry the boot instructions. I only use the G; drive for
data back-up purposes so thought it was a good idea to compress the drive to
save space - little realising that I was also compressing - and so rendering
useless - the boot files. I forget when I did that but probably Friday
morning and then forgot all about it. Saturday morning, revealed the results
of that action but, of course, I gave no further thought to the compression
of the back-up drive.

It has been a very educational weekend.

brianf
 
Now I know what happened. Because I had no idea that XP, for some peculiar
reason, has decided that my G: drive is in functional terms the C: drive
it
evidently has to carry the boot instructions. I only use the G; drive for
data back-up purposes so thought it was a good idea to compress the drive
to
save space - little realising that I was also compressing - and so
rendering
useless - the boot files. I forget when I did that but probably Friday
morning and then forgot all about it. Saturday morning, revealed the
results
of that action but, of course, I gave no further thought to the
compression
of the back-up drive.

It has been a very educational weekend.
Click to expand...

You mean to say the boot files are on G:, not C:? The boot files are
boot.ini, Ntldr, and Ntdetect.com. Also where is the \Windows\ folder - on
C:?
 
Rock said:
You mean to say the boot files are on G:, not C:? The boot files are
boot.ini, Ntldr, and Ntdetect.com. Also where is the \Windows\ folder -
on C:?
Click to expand...
Indeed yes! The boot files are also on the D: drive along with the OS files
but they are not detected there.

brianf
 
BrianF said:
Indeed yes! The boot files are also on the D: drive along with the OS
files but they are not detected there.
Click to expand...


So how did this all come about? Did you do an installation with peripheral
devices attached? That can cause the boot drive to be given a label other
than C:.
 
Rock said:
So how did this all come about? Did you do an installation with
peripheral devices attached? That can cause the boot drive to be given a
label other than C:.
Click to expand...
I really don't know. It must be two years ago since I made this installation
and I have no recollection of what happened at that time. The only thing I
remember is having to change the drive letters around, little appreciating
that I was only changing the drive letters displayed and that Windows still
retains its own drive map. Since then, everything has been working fine and
it was only the invitation to compress the files on the back-up drive (G: by
name but C: by nature) that highlighted this bizarre situation.
It is evidently not that uncommon because the magic solution came when I
discovered the site www.ntldrismissing.com, which provides a boot floppy
download. In the instructions for use, it says, "If that doesn't immediately
work - and you have more hard drives than just C: - try placing the 3 boot
files (boot.ini, ntldr and NTDetect.com) into other drives like D:, E:, F:,
etc. Reboot each time to check if that was the one that fixed it, and when
you find the correct one, mark it as active". Well, G: was already marked as
active in Drive Management and that can't be changed. So, that's where I put
the 3 files and the PC booted up just fine with everything intact - and I
breathed a sigh of relief.

brianf
 
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