WinXP Repair does nothing!

[Morituri-|-Max]

Just woke up, came in and my system was stuck on reboot.. NTLoader not found or
something. Booted system, got as far as beginning to do almost get to desktop,
with WinXP Loading screen. Then I get a real quick flashing blue screen with
dos text and it restarts... didn't pause long enough to TELL me anything of
course.

Put in WinXP CD, booted to the repair screen hit 'R' to repair and ends up with
me in some kind of ASR DOS screen and asks if I want to log onto windows... then
ends up with me at a C: prompt, all I can do is type Exit and it reboots, all
this and it did NOTHING to repair anything..

Anybody out there have a clue what is wrong with the drive? Other than it being
a Maxtor 160GB Disk of course... I can reboot to an older drive with a full
install of windows xp.. it was a 30GB that I had to move to this 160GB for space
reasons..

Arg... Any info appreciated...

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

Just woke up, came in and my system was stuck on reboot.. NTLoader
not found or something. Booted system, got as far as beginning to do
almost get to desktop, with WinXP Loading screen. Then I get a real
quick flashing blue screen with dos text and it restarts... didn't
pause long enough to TELL me anything of course.

Put in WinXP CD, booted to the repair screen hit 'R' to repair and
ends up with me in some kind of ASR DOS screen and asks if I want to
log onto windows... then ends up with me at a C: prompt, all I can do
is type Exit and it reboots, all this and it did NOTHING to repair
anything..
Anybody out there have a clue what is wrong with the drive? Other
than it being a Maxtor 160GB Disk of course... I can reboot to an
older drive with a full install of windows xp.. it was a 30GB that I
had to move to this 160GB for space reasons..

Arg... Any info appreciated...

Update.. hooked up the drive that wouldn't boot as a slave to my old drive..
when it came up it did a chkdsk and found and repaired a bunch of orphaned
files, most of which looked like system stuff as well as doing some kind of
repair to the master file table.. I shut it down after this and reconnected
the bad one back as primary and it booted up fine.. nothing bad happening so
far...

Guess i got lucky? Or should I switch away from maxtors? I have had many
more problems with that brand lately than any other.

If anybody could shed some light I'd be happy.

 

[David Candy]

You were meant to type chkdsk in the recovery console.

 

[Sleepless in Seattle]

Recovery console commands http://michaelstevenstech.com/r_c_cmds.htm

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

You were meant to type chkdsk in the recovery console.

Yeah, but it didn't say so.. and it's been so long since I messed with DOS
command line that that never ocurred to me.. thank god it did a chksdk
automatically when I reconnected it as a slave..

now with win 2000 when I did a "r"epair from the disks, the damn thing
checked everything itself and replaced or fixed the bad files.. it didn't
drop me into DOS without so much as a reference to chkdsk..

guess winxp can't be modern and up to date in everything.. god knows I do
know more about computer repair than the average person and it still threw
me.. god forbid someone like my mom should have that happen.. she wouldn't
even have tried connecting the bad drive to a good one as a slave.

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

What you entered was the recovery console. It's not automated. You
have to decide what commands from the available command set you want
to run.

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307654

Download a drive diagnostic utility from Maxtor's web site and run it.

Got everything fixed.. no thanks to windows xp.. at least win2000 has the
decency to check stuff by itself.. hell why even have a "r" option on the
winxp disk.. why not just say, "if you have a bad windows problem start it
in dos and do whatever" on that screen?

 

[David Candy]

XP and 2000 are the same. If you choose first R it's recovery console, if you wait a bit you'll get another chance to Repair in NT4 style.

Type Help in the recovery console, what else. I wouldn't even consider using the recovery console as commands are undocumented (in their exact technical details), it's fairly useless for most things.

For minor problems I use the second GUI repair (and it was in 2000 I last used it) and major problems a parallel install.

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

XP and 2000 are the same. If you choose first R it's recovery
console, if you wait a bit you'll get another chance to Repair in NT4
style.

Type Help in the recovery console, what else. I wouldn't even
consider using the recovery console as commands are undocumented (in
their exact technical details), it's fairly useless for most things.

For minor problems I use the second GUI repair (and it was in 2000 I
last used it) and major problems a parallel install.

Hmmm, very strange.. how long do I have to wait for the second GUI thing to
appear? Everytime I have used Win2000 repair it has done so right off the
bat, not waited for a certain amount of time to start up.. so there seems
to be SOME difference between the two.. how nice of microsoft to tell me..
heh heh

Thanks for the help.

 

[David Candy]

It been years since I last saw setup. But 2000 and XP are the same. Exact same sequence. You progress further through setup and you get the option of another R which from memory gives you an auto choice or you can choose which of 3 fixes to apply.

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

It been years since I last saw setup. But 2000 and XP are the same.
Exact same sequence. You progress further through setup and you get
the option of another R which from memory gives you an auto choice or
you can choose which of 3 fixes to apply.

Hmmmm... I never got an additional R.. it goes to the DOS thing and stays
there right off... nothing else appears.. and this winxp thing I tried
certainly didn't operate the same as win2k.. with win2k it right off the bat
started checking for corrupted files.. winXP dropped straight to dos and
then stopped there.

Thanks for the followup.

 

[David Candy]

2000 is exactly the same. It was the version that introduced the recovery console.

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

2000 is exactly the same. It was the version that introduced the
recovery console.

Okay, I'm happy it works for you... Just for general chuckles I restarted
the winXP CD, entered the R repair thing and it promptly dropped to the DOS
Recovery console.

It gave me these options:

Enter 1 to log onto the primary disk.
Hit ENTER to cancel

And then it sat there.. I let it sit for 3 minutes and it never went into
any alternate GUI mode.

As soon as I hit ENTER it rebooted.. no extra GUI there either..

So I am happy it works for you, but it neither worked for me, nor did it act
like win2000 which I had installed on my sisters computer the two times I
had to do a repair on hers. On hers, win2000 never dropped to any DOS
recovery console, instead.. like it should do on winXP it repaired corrupted
files straight from the interface that loaded from the CD. It never went to
any DOS screen and it actually fixed it automatically..

So.. color me skeptical that it works like you say on EVERY computer.. heh
heh.. after all nothing is standard these days, although they are MORE
standard than they were 10 years ago.

Have a good one, sorry to have wasted your time.
Ron

 

[David Candy]

You are very stupid, stop hitting the first f*cking R key. Hit ENTER

 

[Michael Stevens]

Okay, I'm happy it works for you... Just for general chuckles I
restarted the winXP CD, entered the R repair thing and it promptly
dropped to the DOS Recovery console.

It gave me these options:

Enter 1 to log onto the primary disk.
Hit ENTER to cancel

And then it sat there.. I let it sit for 3 minutes and it never went
into any alternate GUI mode.

As soon as I hit ENTER it rebooted.. no extra GUI there either..

So I am happy it works for you, but it neither worked for me, nor did
it act like win2000 which I had installed on my sisters computer the
two times I had to do a repair on hers. On hers, win2000 never
dropped to any DOS recovery console, instead.. like it should do on
winXP it repaired corrupted files straight from the interface that
loaded from the CD. It never went to any DOS screen and it actually
fixed it automatically..
So.. color me skeptical that it works like you say on EVERY
computer.. heh heh.. after all nothing is standard these days,
although they are MORE standard than they were 10 years ago.

Have a good one, sorry to have wasted your time.
Ron

Follow the steps in the link below.
When you reach the screen with the R option, there is also the option to
press ENTER. ENTER is the option you want to take and then you will get the
option to do a repair install.
Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address box
if using the web based newsgroup.
Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

You are very stupid, stop hitting the first f*cking R key. Hit ENTER

Wow, you mean stop hitting the first R key so it stays in the windows screen
where you have the option of repairing it or reinstalling windows? Gee
Gosh, it never does shit if I don't hit the first R key..

Ok Dk... gosh... wow... I never would have thought to try both options as
many times as I messed with it.. wow.. how in the world did I not try one of
the only two options..

Listen up you retarded piece of shit.. when I hit ENTER it reboots..

Got it?

It reboots with no repair.. but oh wait I'm sure I didn't do something
right.. oh gosh..

HELLO!

IT ****ING REBOOTS IF I HIT ENTER!

NO REPAIR! NO SECOND GUI! NO FIX! IT JUST ****ING REBOOTS WHEN I HIT
ENTER!

Now, what other helpful suggestions do you have..?

Oh, what was that, enter 1 and log on to the disk, then HIT ENTER?

That didn't work either...

Now what? Care to call me more names after I showed you some respect by not
calling you names?

 

[Morituri-|-Max]

Follow the steps in the link below.
When you reach the screen with the R option, there is also the option
to press ENTER. ENTER is the option you want to take and then you
will get the option to do a repair install.
Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address
box if using the web based newsgroup.
Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Thanks! Makes more sense than this from Mr Candy:
"If you choose first R it's recovery console, if you wait a bit you'll get
another chance to Repair in NT4 style."

When he said that it led me to believe that I had to wait without pressing a
key... he never said "hit enter" at that screen... and then he calls me
stupid...

I'll try that.. thanks for the help that helped.

Have a good one.

 

[David Candy]

The countrepoint of "if you choose" is "If you don't choose it". You kept wanting to say about how 2000 didn't. But 2000 and XP are almost identical.

I also said "You progress further through setup and you get the option of another R which from memory gives you an auto choice or you can choose which of 3 fixes to apply." You kept wanting to say about how 2000 didn't.