Overview - What to Do When XP Won't Boot

[Larry(LJL269)]

I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
I've seen. I cant vouch for details since I've never
had XP refuse to boot!! Comments/suggestions/
corrections are therefore appreciated.


http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp

HTH others too - Larry
Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Edward]

Can you get into Setup? If so, set the boot to go to CD-ROM and choose one
of the options there. I suggest Repair Installation.

Ed

I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
I've seen. I cant vouch for details since I've never
had XP refuse to boot!! Comments/suggestions/
corrections are therefore appreciated.


http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp

HTH others too - Larry
Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can

only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[cimex]

Thanks, Larry!

I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
I've seen. I cant vouch for details since I've never
had XP refuse to boot!! Comments/suggestions/
corrections are therefore appreciated.


http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp

HTH others too - Larry
Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can

only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

I've never had XP refuse to boot, including now. But
its only a matter of time

I shall look at what Repair Installation does tho.

Thank you for such a quick response. Larry

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:28:49 -0000, "Edward"

|Can you get into Setup? If so, set the boot to go to CD-ROM and choose one
|of the options there. I suggest Repair Installation.
|
|Ed
|
|
|
|
||> I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
|> I've seen. I cant vouch for details since I've never
|> had XP refuse to boot!! Comments/suggestions/
|> corrections are therefore appreciated.
|>
|>
|> http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp
|>
|> HTH others too - Larry
|> Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can
|only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.
|

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
I've seen. I cant vouch for details since I've never
had XP refuse to boot!! Comments/suggestions/
corrections are therefore appreciated.


http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112479,00.asp

Throw in one or two - if you boot to the F8 menu, and take Administrator
at Welcome, you ought to get an immediate offer to run System restore.
Next one would be to take the
Safe Mode - Command Prompt
and launch System Restore from that by typing in
%SystemRoot%\System32\Restore\rstrui.exe

Also a run from there of
chkdsk /f C:
may help. as may the method of
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;307545
if restore will not find anything.

He does not appear to know how to make a bootable floppy - that method
is not going to do it. Not that one is going to be much use. If there
is no bootable XP CD, a set of *six* XP bootable floppies can be made by
running a download from
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;310994

From which (or better from the CD) the commands
fixboot
fixmbr

and if those do not do it
BootCfg /Rebuild
coupled with copying ntldr and ntdetect.com to the hard disk C:\ may
help.

If all this does not do it, you are about at the point of a repair
reinstall - and if that doesn't, a complete format and reinstall

 

[Alex Nichol]

I thought this was well written & is 1 of few overviews
I've seen.

I added among other points:

"He does not appear to know how to make a bootable floppy - that method
is not going to do it. "

I owe him an apology - I had not thought that the pseudo DOS formatting
of a floppy in XP actually gave a boot sector code body that loads ntldr
rather than msdos.sys and io.sys

It will boot and proceed to load the system from the hard disk - if the
only troubles are in the ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com on that disk.
So it could be of use in that specific case, if you are unable to boot a
CD to the recovery console, allowing the files to be copied back. But
if you are not in a position to boot a CD, you *really* need the full
six floppy set

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:54:49 +0000, Alex Nichol

|It will boot and proceed to load the system from the hard disk - if the
|only troubles are in the ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com on that disk.
I thought he was gonna copy these 3 files to DOS
floppy made within XP but that is no good if C: isnt
FAT32.


|if you are not in a position to boot a CD
I have OEM XP that came with 2 CDs I've never
explored: 1/DriverResource+DiagnosticTools (bootable) &
2/Software
Searched 4 "rec*' on both & only found :

Software\Recovery\ folder on 1/ that has TXT
files that look like commands to DI6 ( it came with XP
installed & with a PQI of C: in Partition V)

I386\RECOVER.EX_ file on 2/

Looks like I'm SOL re Recovery Console! Guess I could
boot from 1/ & see what happens(shudder)! U will make 6
floppies & email OEM TS.

Thx Alex.
Larry

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Alex Nichol]

|It will boot and proceed to load the system from the hard disk - if the
|only troubles are in the ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com on that disk.
I thought he was gonna copy these 3 files to DOS
floppy made within XP but that is no good if C: isnt
FAT32.

I tested and the floppy made by doing a format from within XP (either in
My Computer, *or* in a Command Prompt FORMAT - to my surprise) puts in
initial boot code that looks for ntldr rather than msdos.sys (DOS boot
file). So if you add the ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com from your HD,
you get a disk that will boot and go on to load windows from the HD.
Only place I can see that being useful is if those files and only those
are damaged on the HD, or where something has changed the partition boot
sector of the HD - eg in a dual boot doing a DOS SYS C:. Which is going
to need more than this little disk to unwind, but would at least leave a
means of booting to go on with.

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 11:52:29 +0000, Alex Nichol

|I tested and the floppy made by doing a format from within XP (either in
|My Computer, *or* in a Command Prompt FORMAT - to my surprise) puts in
|initial boot code that looks for ntldr rather than msdos.sys (DOS boot
|file). So if you add the ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com from your HD,
|you get a disk that will boot and go on to load windows from the HD

Thx for info Alex.

FYI- Before I had a chance to make 6 floppies with
Recovery Console , OEM TS responded with this:

Run 'C:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons ' & follow the
instructions.

On restarting, the Recovery Console did show up in the
list of available operating systems in the boot menu.
When I chose it, only 1st of 2 XP's appeared even tho
I'm running dual-boot of XP made from cloning & using
PQboot. That is not a problem tho. I ran Chkdsk on C:
ok & exited.

TS also advised "when a KB refers to the Windows CD
it's referring to the Software CD. When it refers to a
Driver CD that means the 'DriverResource +
DiagnosticTools' CD". Questioable nomenclature
especially when u consider that Software CD is NOT
marked BOOTABLE but other 1 is.

I prefer to get these things straight & to have used
them at least once b4 I'm in trouble. I think this
illustrates how OEM may implement some emergency
proceedures different than what KB advises altho I
didnt really test if KB for Recovery Console install
works.

OEM TS has been both fast (6hrs) and accurate.

Comments/suggestions/corrections appreciated.
Larry
Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:06:05 +0000, Alex Nichol

|Throw in one or two - if you boot to the F8 menu, and take Administrator
|at Welcome, you ought to get an immediate offer to run System restore.
|Next one would be to take the
|Safe Mode - Command Prompt
|and launch System Restore from that by typing in
|%SystemRoot%\System32\Restore\rstrui.exe
|Also a run from there of
|chkdsk /f C: may help
Thx Alex. I'll add that to text version of arrticle.

| the method of
|http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;307545
|if restore will not find anything.
Evert time I look at that I get a migraine - I'll
just replace Registry with good 1 1-5 days old. I keep
lots of copies going further back & image C: al least
every 2 months.

Comments/suggestions/corrections appreciated.
Thanks- bye- Larry

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Alex Nichol]

TS also advised "when a KB refers to the Windows CD
it's referring to the Software CD. When it refers to a
Driver CD that means the 'DriverResource +
DiagnosticTools' CD". Questioable nomenclature
especially when u consider that Software CD is NOT
marked BOOTABLE but other 1 is.

Trouble is that different OEM makers will put such things in different
places, or not include them at all, so while it is useful for you to
know what is needed for *you* it isn't possible to generalise that for
others. And nomenclature of that sort will almost certainly be their
own. When you buy XP retail ther is just one single CD.

But it is nice to know of a TS who is actually accurate and helpful - a
rare breed

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:43:40 +0000, Alex Nichol

|Trouble is that different OEM makers will put such things in different
|places, or not include them at all, so while it is useful for you to
|know what is needed for *you* it isn't possible to generalise that for
|others.

Yes- which was what I was getting at- I had plenty of
KB's that did me no good. So I had a false sense of
security!

Was going to ask TS about Repair Install but thought
I'd cross that bridge when I came to it since I can
always email them from 2nd XP.

Thanks again Alex- Larry

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.