Windows XP its my 40th b'day-need present-xp not booting - fastfat.sys - where to get sys disk?!

[iamfrustrated]

Hi there,

I have a legitimate version of Windows XP that came with my 2006 Acer Laptop, but did not come with a recovery or system disk?!

For a couple of days, I had been getting an error that stopped the laptop from starting up, saying it couldn't locate an operating system. Then I'd restart it and it would start as normal. Now today I have a real problem. I think I caused it by accidentally leaving a formatted CD in the drive whilst trying to turn the computer on. I'm now not able to boot my laptop.
The error I get is this:

We appologise for the inconvenience...

windows did not close successfully a recent hardware change or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding , restarted unexpectedly or was automatically shut down toprotect your files and folders, chose last known good configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the power or reset button was pressed, or if you arnt sure what caused the problem, chose start up windows normally

It gives me the options of starting in 3 types of safe modes (none worked, just kept looping back to this page after a promising Windows xp start up screen, normal windows mode and also:
Last known good configuration - i've run this one several times too, and one of the times i got the following message:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
System32\Drivers\Fastfat.sys
You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CDROM
Select R at the first screen to start repair"

Well, I don't have a setup CDROM, and have searched the net for it to no avail - can anyone help? I'm at my wits end!

Thank you,

Barbara

 

[Abarbarian]

If you have a friend with the same Windows OS CD then you can reinstall using that and your own Authorisation KEY . Wait for another reply first as you may get a fix without having to reinstall .

 

[Anon_F]

I suggest you try to start it in Safe Mode if you can?
Do this by pressing either F8, F10 or Escape as the Laptop starts up.
Once in safe mode let the laptop start up as normal, take any media out of the CD/DVD Drive, & turn the laptop off and then re-start as normal & see what happens then.

As for the title of this thread?

 

[iamfrustrated]

Thanks very much guys, but no luck yet.



I don't have a friend with a disk (I live in the remote country)

I did try f8, f10 and esc on start-up but it still won't start, just goes to the error messages. I did retrieve the CD out of the drive, the power does allow me to do that.



Thanks so much anyhow!

 

[Covenant]

Acer, in common with many other suppliers, do not give you the original media (WinXP ). You are only given the means to create a backup disk - which I guess you didn't do?

As far as I know, the only way out of this is to obtain a copy of Win XP. You may end up having to buy one.
If you do manage to get a disk, place it in the cd drive boot up and take the option to repair using the consol. From there use chkdsk /r to check the hard drive.
Some laptops have a key or key combo to press at startup which automatically starts a Windows repair, but I don't know if this includes Acer

 

[iamfrustrated]

Hi, thanks anyhow, I ended up taking it to a repairers who said the hard drive was dead. There was no opportunity for a back up disc, as these Acers have a Windows recovery program in hidden partitions built in to the hard drive. unfortunately, in my case, even this wouldn't work.

Thanks anyhow!

 

[JIM451]

Re:

Sure Your Hdd May Have Errors But I Thought That Was What Diskcheck Was For.has Everyone Forgotten How To Copy A File Into A Folder?

 

[iamfrustrated]

Well Jim, $AUD200 worth of labour later, I think he gave it a good go! But who knows...there was certainly no way to do anything from my level of experience
There was no input possible, unfortunately.

 

[DigitalDoctorTech01]

Sounds to me like you got cheated out your money. I have seen lots of errors just like what you are describing, but if you hook the drive up to a USB IDE or USB SATA adapter (depending on your HDD) , often times you are at least able to get the data off the HDD, unless the disk is actually making unusual noises like clicking or grinding or it is not spinning up at all. Even if windows can't see the files we have discovered here at the shop that we are usually able to get files off of Hard Drives that are even going bad by using Linux distros like Nimblex or Ubuntu. There has rarely been times where we are totally unable of getting the data, but after what you said about what they charged I'm beginning to think we undercharge since we only charge $35 USD for data recovery!