Unrecoverably? XP screwed up.

[Guest]

Hi,

First of all if this is not the right group to post this question, please
tell me.

Second, sorry for the longish post, but things are bit weird.

This morning one of my XP machines (I have 3) does not awake any more!

Symptomes: POST OK, XP logo screen with 'running bar' OK; when it is about
to display the user logon screen, the Blue Screen of Death appears and says:

[snipped some amusing but useless remarks about disabling anti-virus, then:]

**** STOP: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE, 0xF7CC6B6C, 0xF7CC6868, 0xF767E6D4)
**** Ntfs.sys - Address F767E6D4 base at F766D0000, Datestamp 45CC56A7

This clearly points to a problem with volume C:

What I tried: a) pressing F8 while booting Win: BSD.

b) using the XP CD to start the Automated System Recovery (yes, I did make a
backup on another disk) arrives at the same BSD as soon as it access disk 0 .

c) using the XP CD to use the Recovery console arrives at the same BSD when
accessing disk 0.

d) using the XP CD to RE-INSTALL XP arrives at the same BSD (this is
particularly nice!).

e) I plugged the HD into another machine, as second HD, and it did work, as
files could be read (but see below). While it was on the other machine I did
a scandisk with all the options checked: it found some bad blocks (already
known) but found nothing to repair. When I moved the HD back to its original
machine, BSD again.

The disk is a Maxtor 80GB SATA with two partitions: C: (10GB with OS) and D:
(70GB, extended, with the apps); on the other PC, C: could be read, but D:
appeared as raw.

The PC is 2-years old, P-IV, 3.2GHz; XP is SP2 with all the updates
installed. Yesterday I installed a new app (on D, I could afford to
un-install it, if I only could get at it!!

The same thing occurred a couple of months ago and I'm getting tired of
re-installing XP and all the apps (not to mention that XP itself and some of
my apps have a limited number of activations). Also as the XP CD is not able
to re-install itself, I have to use a Linux Rescue CD to clear the
partitions, format C: with FAT-32 and then start XP installation (and
reformat to NTFS): uff!!!

Any comment and/or suggestion would be VERY welcome.

 

[Guest]

A quick update: the problme was with D:, not C:

With a Master Boot Record editor, I wiped the partition entry for D: and now
XP works again.

Of course, D: no longer 'exists'; which leaves me with an interesting
problem to solve: which tools or strategies could I use to attempt to recover
(as much as possible) my good old D:?

Again, any suggestion would be welcome!

 

[Jim]

Hi,

First of all if this is not the right group to post this question, please
tell me.

Second, sorry for the longish post, but things are bit weird.

This morning one of my XP machines (I have 3) does not awake any more!

Symptomes: POST OK, XP logo screen with 'running bar' OK; when it is about
to display the user logon screen, the Blue Screen of Death appears and
says:

[snipped some amusing but useless remarks about disabling anti-virus,
then:]

**** STOP: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE, 0xF7CC6B6C, 0xF7CC6868, 0xF767E6D4)
**** Ntfs.sys - Address F767E6D4 base at F766D0000, Datestamp 45CC56A7

This clearly points to a problem with volume C:

What I tried: a) pressing F8 while booting Win: BSD.

b) using the XP CD to start the Automated System Recovery (yes, I did make
a
backup on another disk) arrives at the same BSD as soon as it access disk
0 .

c) using the XP CD to use the Recovery console arrives at the same BSD
when
accessing disk 0.

d) using the XP CD to RE-INSTALL XP arrives at the same BSD (this is
particularly nice!).

e) I plugged the HD into another machine, as second HD, and it did work,
as
files could be read (but see below). While it was on the other machine I
did
a scandisk with all the options checked: it found some bad blocks (already
known) but found nothing to repair. When I moved the HD back to its
original
machine, BSD again.

The disk is a Maxtor 80GB SATA with two partitions: C: (10GB with OS) and
D:
(70GB, extended, with the apps); on the other PC, C: could be read, but D:
appeared as raw.

The PC is 2-years old, P-IV, 3.2GHz; XP is SP2 with all the updates
installed. Yesterday I installed a new app (on D, I could afford to
un-install it, if I only could get at it!!

The same thing occurred a couple of months ago and I'm getting tired of
re-installing XP and all the apps (not to mention that XP itself and some
of
my apps have a limited number of activations). Also as the XP CD is not
able
to re-install itself, I have to use a Linux Rescue CD to clear the
partitions, format C: with FAT-32 and then start XP installation (and
reformat to NTFS): uff!!!

Any comment and/or suggestion would be VERY welcome.

You may have a bad memory stick.
Jim

 

[Ron Martell]

A quick update: the problme was with D:, not C:

With a Master Boot Record editor, I wiped the partition entry for D: and now
XP works again.

Of course, D: no longer 'exists'; which leaves me with an interesting
problem to solve: which tools or strategies could I use to attempt to recover
(as much as possible) my good old D:?

Again, any suggestion would be welcome!

Go to the hard drive manufacturer's web site and download their free
diagnostic utility. Run that to check out the drive for physical
defects.

If the factory diagnostic reports that the drive is okay then post a
response back here and we will proceed to try and recover your
previous D: partition.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."