XP install says no file system on drive, but files are still visible

[WinGuy]

Graphics are on board, so no AGP card.

In my last message I meant 256 colors in forced VGA mode, not 16. But you
are using a AGP driver. Try this... make a backup copy of the existing
Drivers folder, the one I mean is in the system32 folder. Then move these
files over from that HDD driver folder that does boot, and give it a try. I
guess you could not get into Safe Mode after selecting the VGA mode at the
menu?

atapi.sys
intelide.sys
pciidex.sys
storprop.dll

Something you said earlier got me thinking last night. The machine is
a work machine and came with XP Pro already loaded. The XP install
disc I was using is not the same one that was originally installed. I
wonder if this might be the reason for it not showing up when I try to
repair it? Would the install disc refuse to acknowledge the existing
install if the discs were different? It's unlikely our support guys
will be able to tell which was the original. May even have been an OEM
install.

Not necessarily, since you didn't get a lockout at registration time. You
can upgrade a non pirated XP-H or XP-P, OEM or not, with the full (not an
upgrade) retail version of XP-P. Other combinations might result in lockout
at registration time, or simply refuse to install. If I remember correctly,
you said the install did not complete but errored at some point and went
into infinite reboot? It really sounds like it choked on a driver, and I'm
betting one of the above 4 that I listed, or a graphics driver.

I'll check the ntblog later today, but to be honest I'm at the stage
now where I'm thinking I'll have to re-install a new drive and slave
this old one permanently

Don't give up just yet! Since you can access it as a slave, be sure to have
checked it for bad sectors too (it will take forever, I know, but do it). At
least you can back it up (theoretically) and the data there is still
availalbe. So is its registry still intact, I'll bet. Just some stupid
driver. You could also try backing up its current system32\drivers folder
and moving the entire one over from the drive that does boot. If that works,
or it then has entirely different problems, then a repair reinstall of XP
will probably fix it at that point. In that case it's probably a corrupt
graphics driver it's choking on right now, I guess.

Winguy

 

[WinGuy]

Lee, something else could be at issue here, especially if the old drive is
compressed. You said you have around 100gigs of existing programs and data
along with windows files on the problem drive. XP is going to need quite a
bit of space to backup your existing windows related files when you try to
install it over top of itself, and there is that 120gig limitation that
requires a registry mod for bigger HDDs to be recognized in their full
capacity, with warning from HDD manufactures that big HDD's formatted
without that mod can have data loss (or if SCSI, then a controller that can
recognize drivers bigger than 120gigs is required). So if that drive is over
120gigs, be aware.

Sooo! Move all the user data files that you can over to another drive, free
up as much room as you can without impacting actual programs or windows
files. Try to have at least 30 gigs free (that should be over kill, I'd
think). Then make sure you've checked the drive for bad sectors and also let
it automatically fix problems, and then try the re-install of XP-Pro again.
But if the drive is partitioned for greater than 120gigs, then after you
make as much room as possible then do an image copy of it to another drive
before you try the windows repair reinstall (upgrade), and then repartition
it into multiple drives that have no partition greater than 120gigs. Then
image the original content back and try the XP-Pro repair reinstall again.
You could then apply the "big drive" registry patch and do the image musical
chairs thing again to get the drive recognized as one drive and with
everything on it, finially.

 

[WinGuy]

Lee, something else could be at issue here

....

Oh, and I forgot to (re)mention something very important, Lee. Whenever you
use the Maxtor or Western Digital (WD) utility to image a drive, after the
image and before you try to boot the new imaged drive be absolutely sure to
run a check for bad sectors and have it automatically fix problems too
before you boot the new imaged drive! The reason is that I've learned via
BSOD of that necessity the hard way, more than once, and I honestly stand by
that requirement. Only then configure to boot the new imaged drive and try
to reinstall XP over top of itself. Also, Office 10 will almost surely have
to be reinstalled if you're using it (I don't know why, but it's happened
many times to me). Don't let XP partition the drive, use the HDD utility
that came with the drive to do that, after you've made a backup image of its
content.

Winguy

 

[Billy]

Er..yes, like I said in the line above, I tried booting to safe mode,
but it did exactly the same thing.

I did, but I thought it too obvious to mention.


Would a damaged partition table still allow the drive to be visible
and perfectly working as a slave to another OS? While slaved, the
drive also passed a disc check under XP with no errors.

But did you do the Recovery Console Chkdsk /R for that drive, why not?

 

[chopsaw]

if the xp disk is saying you have no file system I know of 2
posibilities:

1: you are using a RAID controller and need to hit f6 when booting off
the cd to install the 3rd party driver

2: you have used a program that has changed the file system on the
frive such as GoBack.