Industrial said:
I:\ drive (the 193GB main system partition i've been using for years that got borked yesterday) is displayed from here as C: drive and status: Healthy (system)
This temporary new installation just so I could use to post on this newsgroup is D:\ drive 40GB with status Healthy (boot)
Nothing I didn't already know.
Not without access to the account.
System means the 193GB partition's boot files are being used.
Boot means the 40GB is your currently running system.
The terminology is the reverse of what you'd assume.
And what you're seeing, means the two installs are "coupled together".
Now, that means the boot files on the 193GB (like boot.ini)
must have been intact. Does the 193GB have a Windows folder ?
Each install should have its own Windows folder.
I only learned about what happens on a second install recently,
when the same kind of thing you're seeing, happened to me
with a second install of Win2K. The new partition was a "logical"
(it doesn't actually boot the computer). The original
partition is doing the booting, because the active flag is
set on it, and the boot files are there. My new install of
Win2K, had practically no files in the new C:, at the root level.
There was some sort of Windows directory, as you'd expect. But
the logical did not have (and did not need) the usual cruft at
the root level of the new C:. My new Win2K, was using the files from the
original install. Which also makes it pretty hard to "compare partitions"
to see what broke. As things stand now, the two partitions are
"different by design".
So that tells us, on the original installation, "something is missing"
(because the repair console wouldn't log in), and that something
is not boot files (because the new install was happy to use them).
I presume as well, when the system boots, you see a black screen
with something like two OS boot choices. The boot menu is
actually presented by the 193GB partition.
WinXP
WinXP
and you select one of those to boot from. If you select the second
one, you get the new install. If you select the first option,
is it still stuck at the logo ?
*******
Using the Google image search capability (where I fed it the URL to
your posted pic), it came up with this article.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Windows-XP-3282/2008/9/t-load-log-screen.htm
Suggestion was to delete pagefile and hiberfile. Now, given
your current "tied together" install, I don't know how easy this
is going to be. On the other hand, if the files *are* shared,
maybe booting to the 193GB partition will work now ?
Another thing that comes to mind, is checking the registry files,
to see if they're present. (Note - don't do the procedure in
here - just check to see if the files are present. For this
procedure to actually work, you need working System Restore points,
which aren't always available.)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
Check to see if you have c:\windows\system32\config\system on
the 193GB partition. The registry is a bunch of files, and the
307545 article gives their names. With your two installations, they will
keep separate registry files (thank goodness). None of that
sharing crap for them.
Paul