Question

HDD recovery

Asked by: mickantone

A potential client reported that his system intermittently powers off and blue-screens. So I hopped over and retrieved his tower (AMD, COMPAQ, XP HOME).  I was finally able to obtain a complete backup (as "complete" as possible) by skipping over files that NTBACKUP "hung" on during the backup. this backup included the C: drive and "system state".  I formatted another HDD, installed XP, did a restore (C: drive and system state).  I then ran a checkdisk /r on the drive and all 5 stages ran successfully or reported that it was successfully repaired. The system was stable and SP2 was successfully installed. After that was completed, SP3 was installed.

Also during the time that SP3 was being downloaded and installed, I also did an ADD\REMOVE programs on Norton AV as many of those files were not retrieved during the original system backup. This was taking an extremely long time, so when the SP3 installation requested a reboot, it was performed in spite of the NAV removal not being completed. There was a notification that additional updates had been downloaded, so those were applied in the power-down selection (31 updates).  

Now the problem: it seems I receive the "OS selection" screen and the default is to boot to the XP partion (RECOVERY CONSOLE is the other option on this COMPAQ).  After two swipes of the XP progress bar, the system reboots.....and repeats this process.

I am currently running checkdisk /r on the hdd....as suggested by the blue-screen stop codes.  From the XP CD "recovery console" I can see the partition and browse to files  in the partition.  

Any suggestions for recovery at this point?  

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Asked On
2009-06-03 at 10:49:23ID24460941
Tags

XP

Topics

Windows XP Operating System

,

Computer Hard Drives

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: khashayar01Posted on 2009-06-03 at 11:08:11ID: 24539328

to troubleshoot i would say boot to safe mode (by pressing F8 before getting to the OS selection screen) then go to run and type msconfig and under the services tap check hide microsoft services and disable everything else. Try to boot normally and if it comes up then disable a few at a time to narrow down the issue.

 

by: flubbsterPosted on 2009-06-03 at 11:13:19ID: 24539392

If you can boot to the recovery console, do so. Once there, execute each of the following commands:

chkdsk /r  (will take a while)
fixboot
fixmbr
bootcfg /rebuild

exit recovery console and attempt normal boot

 

by: mickantonePosted on 2009-06-03 at 11:15:02ID: 24539421

khashayar01,
Thanks for the quick response. I forgot to mention that when I attempt to boot to SAFE mode (F8) during the COMPAQ splash screen, that it does exactly the same thing; i.e., quickly reboots. Prior to this problem, F8 would put this PC into safe mode.

 

by: mickantonePosted on 2009-06-03 at 11:18:05ID: 24539460

flubbster,
I just saw your response also. I will follow your suggestions after the chkdsk is completed.....about 68% at this point.

Thanks......

 

by: khashayar01Posted on 2009-06-03 at 11:18:39ID: 24539466

i would say in this case your best bet would be to try to disable suspicious services such as video related or av related services through the recovery console and then try. Now please keep in mind that troubleshooting a case like this can take much longer than just installing a fresh copy of XP and reinstalling the applications and transferring the data.

 

by: kiltboy278Posted on 2009-06-03 at 12:07:05ID: 24540020

I agree with Flubbster.  This sounds like a bad boot.ini file. The boocfg /rebuild command should do it.  Let us know the results of that command when complete.

 

by: mickantonePosted on 2009-06-03 at 13:15:31ID: 24540811

Hello All.....
As I stated in the original problem description, I did a boot from the XP HOME CD and went into the recovery console where I ran the checkdsk /r.  This took about 2 hours....maybe more. However, the result is a successful reboot, prior to performing any of the other actions.    

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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