No longer able to boot into Windows XP

[NonStarter]

Sorry for posting this to multiple groups but I'm getting a bit desperate
here. :-(

I tried earlier on this evening to use Ghost to back up my XP partition to
another drive, to safeguard me against any possible corruption of my XP
installation. Ghost went through its backup wizard and then rebooted the
machine to perform the backup itself. Unfortunately after displaying its DOS
UI window, it locked up and didn't start the backup. After an hour (no text
displayed on screen) I rebooted the machine.

Upon rebooting, it displayed a boot menu allowing me to run Ghost (which
just crashed again) or boot into Windows without running Ghost. I eventually
selected the latter option.

I then got another menu screen (the details of which I only vaguely
remember) telling me that it couldn't start Windows, and offering me the
choice of deleting the virtual partition or booting from the next bootable
partition. I selected to delete the virtual partition.

After that, I've been unable to boot at all.

Initially, after the POST, the system just stopped without appearing to try
to boot at all. I used the XP Recovery Console and attempted a FIXBOOT,
which made no difference. I then tried a FIXMBR. After this, I got an error
saying "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER."

Out of ideas, I booted from the XP disc and told it to repair the
installation. As soon as it got to the point of rebooting, it just booted
straight to the CD again -- the installation it was in the process of
repairing still cannot be booted.

Can anyone suggest what on earth I can do to get this to boot again? I've
got access to Vista installed on another drive on the same system (which was
disconnected when I attempted the above repair), so I can get into that to
perform disk maintenance tasks. But XP has all my applications installed and
months and months of configuration, and I'd be desperately upset if I lost
that and had to start again. Right now however I don't appear to be able to
even reinstall WinXP on that drive. :-(

Please can anyone help me?

Thanks,

NS.

 

[Guest]

After you "ghosted" xp,did you adjust the BIOS for this,it may be that the
"ghosted
" hd failed,& the BIOS set the new xp installation as the 1st boot
priority.Also,
did you unplug all other hds for the "repair" xp installation +
printers,etc....Also,
so long as youre running an IDE hds to "ghost" or mirror,simply use xps
XCOPY.
Set the new hd as slave to xp (master),format the hd,go to run,type:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in the DOS window,also D: being the
slave hd,if asigned diffrent letter then use that....

 

[NonStarter]

After you "ghosted" xp,did you adjust the BIOS for this,it may be that
the
"ghosted" hd failed,& the BIOS set the new xp installation as the 1st boot
priority.

I did already check that, the correct drive is set as the 1st boot priority
in the BIOS.

Also, did you unplug all other hds for the "repair" xp installation +
printers,etc....

Yes, all the other HDs were disconnected for the repair.

Also,
so long as youre running an IDE hds to "ghost" or mirror,simply use xps
XCOPY.
Set the new hd as slave to xp (master),format the hd,go to run,type:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r Agree to all in the DOS window,also D: being
the
slave hd,if asigned diffrent letter then use that....

I'm unsure as to what you're suggesting here -- is it that I use XCOPY to
back up my entire WinXP installation to another drive, then I recreate the
original partition and then copy everything back again?

NS.

 

[John John]

I did already check that, the correct drive is set as the 1st boot
priority in the BIOS.



Yes, all the other HDs were disconnected for the repair.



I'm unsure as to what you're suggesting here -- is it that I use XCOPY
to back up my entire WinXP installation to another drive, then I
recreate the original partition and then copy everything back again?

Don't listen to Andrew E., he doesn't know what the hell he is talking
about. You can't copy an active Windows installation with his stupid
plan.

John

 

[Galen Somerville]

Sorry for posting this to multiple groups but I'm getting a bit desperate
here. :-(

I tried earlier on this evening to use Ghost to back up my XP partition to
another drive, to safeguard me against any possible corruption of my XP
installation. Ghost went through its backup wizard and then rebooted the
machine to perform the backup itself. Unfortunately after displaying its
DOS UI window, it locked up and didn't start the backup. After an hour (no
text displayed on screen) I rebooted the machine.

Upon rebooting, it displayed a boot menu allowing me to run Ghost (which
just crashed again) or boot into Windows without running Ghost. I
eventually selected the latter option.

I then got another menu screen (the details of which I only vaguely
remember) telling me that it couldn't start Windows, and offering me the
choice of deleting the virtual partition or booting from the next bootable
partition. I selected to delete the virtual partition.

After that, I've been unable to boot at all.

Initially, after the POST, the system just stopped without appearing to
try to boot at all. I used the XP Recovery Console and attempted a
FIXBOOT, which made no difference. I then tried a FIXMBR. After this, I
got an error saying "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS
ENTER."

Out of ideas, I booted from the XP disc and told it to repair the
installation. As soon as it got to the point of rebooting, it just booted
straight to the CD again -- the installation it was in the process of
repairing still cannot be booted.

Can anyone suggest what on earth I can do to get this to boot again? I've
got access to Vista installed on another drive on the same system (which
was disconnected when I attempted the above repair), so I can get into
that to perform disk maintenance tasks. But XP has all my applications
installed and months and months of configuration, and I'd be desperately
upset if I lost that and had to start again. Right now however I don't
appear to be able to even reinstall WinXP on that drive. :-(

Please can anyone help me?

Thanks,

NS.

First comment. Don't run Ghost from Windows. Make a Ghost boot disk. Restart
computer and boot up on this disk.

Second comment. When you used the XP CD did you use the first Repair option?
At this first screen select Install XP. On that second screen select the
repair option.

Third comment. The first two comments will not help you now.

Galen