How can I do a "repair" install on this drive

[mtimerding]

I have a A8N SliDeluxe motherboard, with 4 gigs of Ram, and Windows XP Pro
installed and 5 harddrives. The computer boots fine, and seems to run okay,
but I
keep getting ERRORS on the C: drive on every bootup. While chkdsk /r (from
the windows cd) finds and corrects the errors, soon after the very next boot
into
Windows, the C: drive once again has errors on it, obviously something is
corrupted
with my windows install. SFC /scannow didn't fix the problem, so I am
wanting to do
a repair install of Windows, the probem is the installation cd (Windows XP
Pro) does
not find any previous installations of windows to repair, and instead always
wants to
jump to preforming a new install of Windows every time. This is what I don't
understand,
it boots into Windows from the harddrive fine, but the windows cd says there
is no
previous installation on the drive.

Is there anyway to correct this harddrive errors problem, and if not, anyway
to get
the install cd to recognize the previous installation so I can run a
repair? I really
don't want to do a clean install from scratch again, cause I have 20 gigs of
software
on this drive, and prefer not to have to enter all the "Activation" codes,
Unlock codes
and Regristration codes yet AGAIN. (besides a lot of this software has a
"limit" on
the number of times it can be installed. (And Yes, I do have all the codes
and
receipts for all this junk)


Thank You

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 1/16/2008 1:47 PM, and on a whim,
(e-mail address removed) pounded out on the keyboard:

I have a A8N SliDeluxe motherboard, with 4 gigs of Ram, and Windows XP Pro
installed and 5 harddrives. The computer boots fine, and seems to run okay,
but I
keep getting ERRORS on the C: drive on every bootup. While chkdsk /r (from
the windows cd) finds and corrects the errors, soon after the very next boot
into
Windows, the C: drive once again has errors on it, obviously something is
corrupted
with my windows install. SFC /scannow didn't fix the problem, so I am
wanting to do
a repair install of Windows, the probem is the installation cd (Windows XP
Pro) does
not find any previous installations of windows to repair, and instead always
wants to
jump to preforming a new install of Windows every time. This is what I don't
understand,
it boots into Windows from the harddrive fine, but the windows cd says there
is no
previous installation on the drive.

Is there anyway to correct this harddrive errors problem, and if not, anyway
to get
the install cd to recognize the previous installation so I can run a
repair? I really
don't want to do a clean install from scratch again, cause I have 20 gigs of
software
on this drive, and prefer not to have to enter all the "Activation" codes,
Unlock codes
and Regristration codes yet AGAIN. (besides a lot of this software has a
"limit" on
the number of times it can be installed. (And Yes, I do have all the codes
and
receipts for all this junk)


Thank You

Is your OS on a SATA drive? Are you loading the driver when prompted at
the beginning of the install (Press F6 to load drivers or something to
that effect)? You may have a defective drive if the errors keep appearing.

--
Terry R.

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[John McGaw]

Windows, the C: drive once again has errors on it, obviously something is
corrupted
with my windows install. SFC /scannow didn't fix the problem, so I am

snip...

Why do you assume that something is corrupted with the windows install
based on what appears to be disk errors? It seems equally likely that a
marginal power supply, failing disk, or even a intermittently defective
disk cable (I just got bitten by that one myself) could be the problem.
Once any one of these gets going and is allowed to continue there is no
limit to the amount of data corruption you might find. What begins as a
relatively minor hardware problem can quickly become system-wide.

Why not try simplifying your system down to 1 HD, 1 optical, and remove
everything else that the system can operate without and then start again
after replacing the drive cables? If that doesn't work, is the drive
readable on another computer? If so you may be able to fix it there and
then clone it to a different device and then do a repair install.

John McGaw
http://johnmcgaw.com

 

[mtimerding]

s your OS on a SATA drive? Are you loading the driver when prompted at
the beginning of the install (Press F6 to load drivers or something to
that effect)? You may have a defective drive if the errors keep
appearing.

Right now, it's on an IDE (secondary channel to be exact).....
If it was on SATA, I don't have to load drivers (F6 at boot) apparently,
cause this motherboard/bios loads em already. (I did at one time
have the OS on a SATA) .... and I switched it to the IDE cause,
beleive it or not it is by far the fastest drive (I guess because of it's
16mb cache?) At either rate, it always benchmarks faster, than all
my Sata's, even the 10k RPM Raptor I WAS using.

I hope/beleive the drive isn't failing, cause it is by far the newest
of the bunch I have, only a few months old. Windows is not reporting
any errors on the drive, and it does pass GRC's "Spinrite" testing.

I just don't understand, how/why the system boots fine, appears to
run fine, yet the Windows CD finds no "previously installed versions of
Windows" to repair. (yet, when it attempts to install fresh windows, I can
clearly see the drive/partion on the list of available install locations.
and even more odd, when I pick the current OS drive for a new install,
THEN it decides to tell me "there's already a Windows installation on this
drive" ......(or however it's worded)

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 1/16/2008 3:13 PM, and on a whim,
(e-mail address removed) pounded out on the keyboard:

Right now, it's on an IDE (secondary channel to be exact).....
If it was on SATA, I don't have to load drivers (F6 at boot) apparently,
cause this motherboard/bios loads em already. (I did at one time
have the OS on a SATA) .... and I switched it to the IDE cause,
beleive it or not it is by far the fastest drive (I guess because of it's
16mb cache?) At either rate, it always benchmarks faster, than all
my Sata's, even the 10k RPM Raptor I WAS using.

I hope/beleive the drive isn't failing, cause it is by far the newest
of the bunch I have, only a few months old. Windows is not reporting
any errors on the drive, and it does pass GRC's "Spinrite" testing.

I just don't understand, how/why the system boots fine, appears to
run fine, yet the Windows CD finds no "previously installed versions of
Windows" to repair. (yet, when it attempts to install fresh windows, I can
clearly see the drive/partion on the list of available install locations.
and even more odd, when I pick the current OS drive for a new install,
THEN it decides to tell me "there's already a Windows installation on this
drive" ......(or however it's worded)

Windows requires the SATA drivers, not the mb. That's why I asked, but
since it's on an IDE, that isn't the case. Does your boot.ini reflect
the correct location? You said you used to have it on a SATA drive, so
let's be sure you're using the correct partition. This could be a
result of the drive failing also.

I would go to the drive manufacturers site and get their testing
software and do a thorough test. Just because a drive is new doesn't
guarantee it won't fail.

--
Terry R.

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[mtimerding]

Does your boot.ini reflect the correct location?

Below is my boot.ini ...it appears correct to me going by Computer
Management/Disk Management that drive is listed as Disk 0: (even tho
Acronis True Image says it is Disk 5!

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

One other thing, the drive is a Maxtor, and yes, I have run their MaxBlast
software
on it. (Even tho I would tend to take the word of GRC's Spinrite over it)

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was 1/16/2008 4:51 PM, and on a whim,
(e-mail address removed) pounded out on the keyboard:

Does your boot.ini reflect the correct location?

Below is my boot.ini ...it appears correct to me going by Computer
Management/Disk Management that drive is listed as Disk 0: (even tho
Acronis True Image says it is Disk 5!

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

One other thing, the drive is a Maxtor, and yes, I have run their MaxBlast
software
on it. (Even tho I would tend to take the word of GRC's Spinrite over it)

Didn't you say the OS is on the secondary IDE channel? It looks like
it's loading from the primary drive 0, not 1 (secondary). My IDE
channel 1 master is disk 0, IDE channel 1 2nd is disk 1, IDE secondary
master is disk 2. You said you had 5 hard drives. Configured how,
partitions and all?

So you've run a comprehensive disk check using Maxblast and it doesn't
detect anything, but chkdsk does?

--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
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Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.