Windows XP XP Lock down!!

[DaveRave]

Hello,

This being my very first post ever, please be gentle with me.
OK, here's the story so far...................
Last Saturday my wife installed IOLO PC mechanic (Version 7) onto her PC (which had been running extremely slowly for some time). Anyway as with most software it did is thing ran through the set up all fine then at the "re-boot pc now or do it later", my wife re-booted the PC.
When the PC re-booted the windows splash screen popped up as normal followed by a screen saying "Auotocheck program not found-skipping autocheck".
I've done a fair bit of googling this week and can see that this is indeed a fairly well documented thing. However, it would seem our particular little problem has not been covered by all of the technical wizards on the net.
Weve tried downloading PDEDIT and NgBoot form Symantec as we have Norton Go back & internet securit installed on the PC (this was what IOLO advised we do) which failed to work!
I've tried doing a "last known good configuration" .....did'nt work.
I've tried running chkdsk /p & /r .........didn't work.
I've tried to re-boot from the XP start up disk which led us to the following which I thought was rather weird. When I got to the section where it mentions partition it stated that the partion was HNTFS) etc. There was no mention of C: drive?
I don't claim to know anything but I thought the C: drive was where the operating system worked from? We ahve never tampered with PC or moved anything (basically 'cos I don't really understand that much about the workings of PC's & software).

So if you can offer any pointers I'd really appreciate it as my wifae has some important colleg work she needs on the hard drive (wherever that may be????).

Many Thanks

Dave

 

[floppybootstomp]

Mate of mine was running exactly the same Nortons programs and installed PC Mechanic and he hosed his system. Looks like you've hosed yours as well.

It does look as if you'll have to do a fresh installation of XP and when you get round to that - steer clear of anything Nortons cos it's rubbish and the same goes for PC Mechanic - total tripe.

If you're in a position to be able to burn a CD then to recover your wife's data you could download a Linux Distro (I suggest PC Linux OS, very user friendly) burn it to CD and boot from it.

You'll then be able to run PC Linux OS 'live' and browse to your Windows data. You should then be able to transfer, via cut and paste, to an external usb pen drive.

I recall at one time Linux Distros could only read to NTFS partitions and not write but I think that may have changed and the latest distros can actually read and write.

Anyways, it's certainly worth a shot.

You can download Linux Distros from Here and remember you need one that runs 'live'.

 

[DaveRave]

A thouisand thanks!

Hey floppybootstomp,

Many thanks for the reply, I'll have a bash at what you've suggested and keep you posted.

Cheers

Dave

 

[DaveRave]

? Dowloading Linux Live

OK I'm completely stuck. How do you download Linux live disc?

Ta

Dave

 

[floppybootstomp]

Go to Here and click on a server to download the iso file. I'd go for the 2007 version rather than the Gnome version and it's worth mentioning that the server nearest to you isn't always the fastest. I tried the Irish one and that was giving me a reasonable speed.

Once you have the iso file saved to hard disk, you need to burn it to a CD.

To do this you need software capable of burning an iso file to make a finished product. All versions of Nero do this, you can pick up an OEM version of nero for around a fiver from most online suppliers.

An iso file is just a convenient way of wrapping up software to make it easy to host.

 

[Adywebb]

OK, if your going for Flops suggestion of PCLinuxOS, then download the ISO and then burn it to CD using your CD burning software there is a guide for some of the various burning software suites HERE.

Edit: Sorry Flops - you posted whilst I was still compiling

 

[DaveRave]

XP Lockdown!

Hey guys,

I did as suggested and burned the linux CD, stuck it in the problem PC to no avail. It just won't boot up. When I looked on my PC at the properties on the Linux file it said that the file might be blocked to ensure it does'nt attack my pc. I'm a bit loath to un-lock it as my pc is where I do all my recording. Any suggestions?

Thanks again

Dave

PS: Is there any way I can link my wifes laptop/ my PC to her problem PC and download the data from the harddrive? Like I said its her college work that she's concerned about and a couple of photos of her late gran.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Did you make the CD drive the priority boot device in the Bios?

Once you've done that then with the Linux CD in the drive keep your eye out for a prompt 'Press any key to boot from CD' and do just that.

It is possible your download may have been corrupt.

And did the iso file burn ok? What I'm saying is, you burnt from the iso file, not just copied the iso file to disk, as that won't work.

 

[DaveRave]

Pc Lockdown!

Floppybootstomp,

I know that the BIOS settings are set up to boot from the CD device first, so I guess I'll try another download.

Again, many thanks for your help.

Dave

 

[DaveRave]

XP Lockdown!

When I click on the link, it tells me something about an md5 checksum to validate the linux iso. What do I need to do with this?

Sorry for my ignorance but this is totally new to me.

Thanks

Dave

 

[DaveRave]

XP Lockdown!

Hello,

Have'nt had any spare time to downlaod Linux today, but one of our IT guys did loan me a copy of XP live. I put it in the problem PC and it booted up fine. However I still can't see the C:drive anywhere? My IT friend at work is pretty sure the re-naming of the partition from C: to H: is the problem. How the hell that happened he has no idea and I certainly don't. Anyone got any thoughts??

Cheers

PS: I'm also wondering whether it is worth trying the Linux route seeing as the XP live disk has'nt worked?

 

[muckshifter]

Linux will not care what your hard drive letters are called, if it can 'see' the data you want, you can save it.

If you are having problem making your own Linux CD from a download, go to WHSmiths (or even Tesco) and check out the Linux Mags, most, if not all, will have a Live CD you can use, will cost you money for the Mag though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveDistro

It may not look an easy task, but if yor data is that important, why not give it a try out.

http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

 

[DaveRave]

XP Lockdown!

All,

Many thanks for your help. One of our IT guys got the data from the hard drive and we've done a re-boot with CD provided with the PC. All seems OK (for the time being!!).

Again many thanks

Dave

 

[nimd4]

I prefer TuneUp Registry Cleaner & Registry Defrag to System Mechanic for those kinds of reasons..:S The autocheck is a BootExecute Multi-String Value @

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

& by default it should read (with a mandatory return carriage at the end! ):

autocheck autochk *

ps. it can be managed with CHKNTFS.EXE ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/160963 ).