Netgear software removal crippled XP

[Cellu Lloyd]

I removed Netgear Storage Central Manager from my system.
When I rebooted it just cycled around the "failed to start" screen.
Choosing last good configuration or safe mode doesn't have any effect.
Netgear support have been absolutely useless.
Last I heard "one of their technical team would research the problem"
That was weeks ago.
Sony told me to use the recovery disk that came with the machine BUT.....

Because the system is Sony it only comes with a recovery disk that will
restore the machine to original setup - killing all my software, years of
updates etc.

1. How can I find out what's crashing the machine?
2. If I buy a new XP disk will I be able to re-install windows and keep all
my software & settings.
3. Will the fault still be there on a re-installation?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I removed Netgear Storage Central Manager from my system.
When I rebooted it just cycled around the "failed to start" screen.
Choosing last good configuration or safe mode doesn't have any effect.
Netgear support have been absolutely useless.
Last I heard "one of their technical team would research the problem"
That was weeks ago.
Sony told me to use the recovery disk that came with the machine BUT.....

Because the system is Sony it only comes with a recovery disk that will
restore the machine to original setup - killing all my software, years of
updates etc.

1. How can I find out what's crashing the machine?
2. If I buy a new XP disk will I be able to re-install windows and keep
all
my software & settings.
3. Will the fault still be there on a re-installation?

First thing to do, is to back up the data on that drive. Get an external
USB2 drive case or adapter that matches the connector type on your drive
(IDE or SATA), remove the drive from your system, attach it to the case and
plug that into another XP system with enough drive space and just copy the
files over. This case or connector can be around $20.

You might consider also getting a new drive if that one is "years old".
New drives are not expensive; where I am 500 gig drives are just over $100.
This approach lets you use the old drive as a backup.

If you take this route, remove your old drive and plug the new one in
exactly the same way. Run your recovery disks, get the latest updates,
then reinstall your core apps and make accounts as needed.

After that's done, connect the old drive and copy your data back into place.

This process can be a lot easier and less aggravating than trying to find
and fix an obscure problem. It will give you a reliably working system in
just a few hours, with your old drive as backup and reference.

However, you might also try editing the boot.ini file - you may need to
boot from an XP or Linux CD, or shift the drive to another system to do
this. Specifically, turn on boot logging. You'd let the system try to
boot, and once it fails, you shut down and copy the Ntbtlog.txt file off and
see where it is failing, and use that as a starting point.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833721

HTH
-pk