Moms computer wont boot-please help!

[Guest]

Hello ,

Moms computer wont boot. OEM V2 Premier with XP Home and SP2 installed. But
this computer did not come with an XP disk supplied. Only a 'Recovery
disk' which formats the whole system from
scratch. I didnt want to start her off from scratch so I tried running
recovery console from my XP Home disk with SP2
embedded. Ran chkdsk /r and computer will now boot to the screen with
scrolling
blue bar --but then comes up with a black screen with various errors such
as "The application DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll is not a valid
Windows image.Please check against your installation diskette".-- I click
'OK' and a similar message pops up and I click 'OK' and the computer reboots
into a loop like this . At one time I did see a blue screen
saying 'Bad checksum' or something similar. I saw various posts that refer to
'fixmbr' and 'fixboot' etc. Are these something I need to try? Could there be
a virus that changed some BIOS settings? Or should i just go out and buy her
a
real version of XP ?(The version she has is 'real'- with a product key
sticker on the tower,but the 'recovery disk' is not a real XP Home disk-just
some sort of recovery thing called 'Image-It' v3.0) Thankyou for your
time. Deano

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Moms computer wont boot. OEM V2 Premier with XP Home and SP2
installed. But this computer did not come with an XP disk
supplied. Only a 'Recovery disk' which formats the whole system
from
scratch. I didnt want to start her off from scratch so I tried
running recovery console from my XP Home disk with SP2
embedded. Ran chkdsk /r and computer will now boot to the screen
with scrolling
blue bar --but then comes up with a black screen with various
errors such as "The application DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll
is not a valid Windows image.Please check against your installation
diskette".-- I click 'OK' and a similar message pops up and I click
'OK' and the computer reboots into a loop like this . At one time I
did see a blue screen
saying 'Bad checksum' or something similar. I saw various posts
that refer to 'fixmbr' and 'fixboot' etc. Are these something I
need to try? Could there be a virus that changed some BIOS
settings? Or should i just go out and buy her a
real version of XP ?(The version she has is 'real'- with a product
key sticker on the tower,but the 'recovery disk' is not a real XP
Home disk-just some sort of recovery thing called 'Image-It' v3.0)

You could try a repair install with your CD - but your actual original
course of action should have been to backup all of the
settings/files/folders/cd keys/etc off the machine - restored it using the
manufacturers method (or purchasing a full retail CD if you disliked the
manufacturers method that much) and after enabling the firewall - connecting
to the Internet and updating all patches - downloading the latest hardware
drivers form the manufacturers (not Microsoft) and making sure all of the
old applications were installed and updated as well. Then restore the data.

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Shenan

I doubt that a recovery install is possible with a customized OEM XP image..

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Deano

If you have access to a competent computer user's ability and system, you
should install the drive into that system and ask the competent user to back
up all important files, e-mail etc.. having done this, re-install the drive
back into the original system, and do a full recovery using the supplied CD
set..

In some cases, there is a small partition containing the start procedure for
the recovery.. it may even hold more than that, but either way is mission
critical to getting the system back up and running.. the best way to
determine this is to call the vendor..

The scenario that I am about to put to you is not exactly cheap, but it has
the advantage of being easy to install, will not add a pile of useless
'added' software that the vendor thinks will make you believe that their
product is better than the competition, and will leave you with a drive that
can be used for important stuff that would survive in the event of an OS
crash.. the downside is that any additional software supplied by the vendor
on the recovery set CD(s) may well be out of reach..

Buy a new hard drive and Windows XP CD.. fit the drive as master (leave the
original out for now).. install XP from your new CD, using the key supplied
with it.. ensure that it is all working, all drivers installed, and all
components showing in Device Manager as ok..

Now install the original drive as a slave to the new one.. you can now copy
all important stuff, import e-mail and address book to the new drive at your
leisure.. when you are satisfied that you have everything, partition and
format the second drive from within Windows..

Re-install any Office software, games etc to your new drive.. move all of
the important stuff back to the second drive.. point file saves made by
Office programs or any other to a location on the second drive..

Having done all of this, in the event of future OS failure, you can install
a new OS on the second drive, remembering not to accept the 'format before
install'.. your important data will still be intact, and you can clear the
failed OS from the drive, and use it as a slave in the same way as you
originally set the two drive system up..

Please note that it is still a very good idea to back up (save) important
stuff to CD/DVD..

 

[Rock]

Hello ,

Moms computer wont boot. OEM V2 Premier with XP Home and SP2 installed. But
this computer did not come with an XP disk supplied. Only a 'Recovery
disk' which formats the whole system from
scratch. I didnt want to start her off from scratch so I tried running
recovery console from my XP Home disk with SP2
embedded. Ran chkdsk /r and computer will now boot to the screen with
scrolling
blue bar --but then comes up with a black screen with various errors such
as "The application DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll is not a valid
Windows image.Please check against your installation diskette".-- I click
'OK' and a similar message pops up and I click 'OK' and the computer reboots
into a loop like this . At one time I did see a blue screen
saying 'Bad checksum' or something similar. I saw various posts that refer to
'fixmbr' and 'fixboot' etc. Are these something I need to try? Could there be
a virus that changed some BIOS settings? Or should i just go out and buy her
a
real version of XP ?(The version she has is 'real'- with a product key
sticker on the tower,but the 'recovery disk' is not a real XP Home disk-just
some sort of recovery thing called 'Image-It' v3.0) Thankyou for your
time. Deano

After you fix the computer consider investing in a drive imaging
program. This makes an exact image of the partition which can be saved
on CD/DVD or to another drive - internal or external. Imaging to an
external USB 2.0 / Firewire drive works well. Then occasionally burning
an image to DVD gives you redundancy. Restores can be done of the
entire partition or individual files / folders. These work well and make
it easy to recover from a drive crash. Examples of this are:

Norton Ghost 10
Acronis True Image
Terabyte Unlimited's Image for Windows

 

[Guest]

Hello ,

Moms computer wont boot. OEM V2 Premier with XP Home and SP2 installed. But
this computer did not come with an XP disk supplied. Only a 'Recovery
disk' which formats the whole system from
scratch. I didnt want to start her off from scratch so I tried running
recovery console from my XP Home disk with SP2
embedded. Ran chkdsk /r and computer will now boot to the screen with
scrolling
blue bar --but then comes up with a black screen with various errors such
as "The application DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\SHELL32.dll is not a valid
Windows image.Please check against your installation diskette".-- I click
'OK' and a similar message pops up and I click 'OK' and the computer reboots
into a loop like this . At one time I did see a blue screen
saying 'Bad checksum' or something similar. I saw various posts that refer to
'fixmbr' and 'fixboot' etc. Are these something I need to try? Could there be
a virus that changed some BIOS settings? Or should i just go out and buy her
a
real version of XP ?(The version she has is 'real'- with a product key
sticker on the tower,but the 'recovery disk' is not a real XP Home disk-just
some sort of recovery thing called 'Image-It' v3.0) Thankyou for your
time. Deano

Thankyou all for your time and will try your suggestions and let you know how I made out. Deano