Windows XP Recovery Console

[Guest]

I am trying to resote my fathers computer. He has XP Pro SP2.
It crashed and won't boot to hard drive.
When I run the XP disk and load the repair option it's all good untill I get
to the Recovery Console screen.

From most of what I've read online, it supposed to look like this:

"The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality."
"Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer."
"1. C:WINDOWS"

But this says:

"The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality."
"Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer."
"The path or file specified is not valid."
"C:\>"

Do you think the "WINDOWS" director may be corrupted?
If so, how do I repair that?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am trying to resote my fathers computer. He has XP Pro SP2.
It crashed and won't boot to hard drive.
When I run the XP disk and load the repair option it's all good untill I
get
to the Recovery Console screen.

From most of what I've read online, it supposed to look like this:

"The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality."
"Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer."
"1. C:WINDOWS"

But this says:

"The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality."
"Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer."
"The path or file specified is not valid."
"C:\>"

Do you think the "WINDOWS" director may be corrupted?
If so, how do I repair that?

We can't tell unless you post full details about what happens
during the normal boot process, what you see on the screen
and how it gets.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

You haven't yet proven that the hard drive itself can be read. If you get
the C:\ prompt, do a DIR command and see what it returns. Specifically, what
directories?

 

[Guest]

It says:

Boot Failure
Insert BOOT diskette in A:
Press any key when ready

 

[Guest]

when I do that it shows nothing, just the c:>

You haven't yet proven that the hard drive itself can be read. If you get
the C:\ prompt, do a DIR command and see what it returns. Specifically, what
directories?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You should now determine if your hard disk is intact. You can
do it like so:
1. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
2. Run the command ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com).
3. Check if you have the usual folders on your hard disk.

 

[Guest]

It says "The path or file specified is not valid."

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Do what Pegasus said. Sounds to me like the HD isn't accessible. Could be
the drive gone bad, could be a loose cable (there are two), the motherboard
controller might be bad...