Recover Dell with corrupted restore partition

Do you have the recovery disks that came with the machine?

You can try running hddreg on the drive. If that can't correct errors it finds, I'm afraid there's not too much you can do. But the good thing about this tool is that it can revive an HD without causing more errors. Other tools can mke things worse.

http://www.dposoft.net/

Thanks

I do not have a recovery disk from Dell. it's gone.

I have run SpinWrite 6 on it as a first try and it did not help.  I'm not familar with hddreg.  I'll check that out.

Causes to this STOP error are manifold, as you may see on these sites:

-Advanced troubleshooting for "Stop 0x0000007B" errors in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

-STOP 0x0000007B Error Resolution
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/stop0x0000007b.htm

-"STOP 0x0000007B" error message when you restart your Windows XP-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316401&sd=RMVP


In your case, I'd estimate that the most probable causes might be:
1.- Corrupted boot record or boot sector
2.- Boot sector virus
3.- Failing hard drive

Points #1 and #2 could easily be handled by running "fixboot" and "fixmbr" from the Recovery Console; unfortunately, you are unable to get there and issue those commands.

So I suggest you do the following:
- Download the Ultimate BootCD 5 Beta from here: http://www.layer31.com/ubcd50b12.iso
- Burn it and boot it
- Select "HDD > Diagnosis" to choose the HDD diagnostic tool appropriate for your hard drive (will take care of point #3)
- Select "HDD > Data Recovery > TestDisk" (will take care of #1 and #2, hopefully)

TestDisk is an advanced and very powerful tool able to repair almost anything about a non-booting disk/partition which is not caused by failing hardware; but it is not easy to handle.
So make sure to read the documentation: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Here's a step-by-step guide for a quickstart: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step


Note: If you don't feel comfortable working from the command line only, you could also start "Parted Magic" from the initial menu of UBCD; this is a complete Linux graphical environment which includes TestDisk, and on top of this can connect you to the internet so that you will be able to browse the web and check online documentation while repairing.
You will find TestDisk in Start > System Tools > TestDisk

contact them, they may be able to supply a support cd

Torimar

I reallly like where you are leading me with the UBD5 Beta.  I think there may be good chance.  I've built the UBD5 disk and it boots OK.  When I try to open HDD> Data Recovery > Test Disk, it won't open the program.  I've read the support pages about how to use Test Disk and think it may work.  I'll make another boot disk with UBD5 to see if that will make a difference.  Also I'm trying to make a boot from Test Disk 6.11.

Torimar

I got to Test Dick using Parted Magic and was able to identify the partitions and they processed fine.  After using Test Disk, now my Windows boot brings up "NTLDR is missing".  I no longer go straight to the 7b stop BSOD.  What's next?

Dan

Boot using the Windows XP installation disk, press R. Then type the following commands:
note : you can test after each command

      FIXMBR
      FIXBOOT
      BOOTCFG /rebuild
      cd\
      copy E:\i386\NTLDR
      ATTRIB -arsh ntldr
      copy e:\i386\NTDETECT.COM
      ATTRIB -arsh ntdetect.com

E: should be the location of your CDRom where you have the Windows install disk located.
and check if those files are in the root :   NTLDR   boot.ini     ntdetect.com

Contents of the boot.ini file :
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

check this too for more info :  http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm#What_if_none_of_the_options_worked?

Nobus

Thanks for the quick reply.  I have tried to boot to an XP disk and use recovery.  I get an error message before the recovery choice:  "file mountmgr.sys caused and unexpected error (47872) at line 5964 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c.  Press any key to continue"  Can I get past this error?

i thinks it is telling you that the recovery partition is indeed corrupt
let's see if torimar has something else up his sleeve; i  have'nt. - unless the cd suggestion

The Dell recovery partition is a strange setup.  DSRFix is a tool to recover corrupted Dell Recovery Partitions and it doesn't seem to help.... or maybe I don't know how to use it.`   A little update, I have got to a Windows boot screen and then freeze.  When asking for boot to last successful boot it goes back to my 7b stop error.  I think we're changing things a bit but still not the right combination of tools and tricks.  Sure hope we keep going.

Dan

from the manual  :  page 55   -     http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim5150/en/om/WD846A02.pdf
To use PC Restore:
1 Turn on the computer.
During the boot process, a blue bar with www.dell.com appears at the top of the screen.
2 Immediately upon seeing the blue bar, press <Ctrl><F11>.
If you do not press <Ctrl><F11> in time, let the computer finish starting, and then restart the
computer again.
NOTICE: If you do not want to proceed with PC Restore, click Reboot in the following step.
3 On the next screen that appears, click Restore.
4 On the next screen, click Confirm.
The restore process takes approximately 610 minutes to complete.

Sorry, I've been away for a couple of hours.

Before I'll be able to study the course of events more intensively, here one quick shot:
Could it be that you are not using the correct disk?
The Recovery Console that we are talking about is not reached via a Dell Recovery CD, it is reached via an XP Installation Disk that you need to boot from. Did you use an Installation CD? If yes, did you already try another one? There is a slight chance the installation media got corrupted. Maybe you have another Install CD from some other computer lying around; if not borrow one from friends or neighbours.

As soon as you got a working one, boot to the Recovery Console (here's how: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/wxprcons.html) and issue the commands:
fixboot
fixmbr

Nobus, I've done the Ctrl +f11 routine for this and that comes back stop 7b.  

Torimar, I've been away all afternoon too.  Here is where we are:  I've been able to use Test Disk to see the drive and partitions.  Two partitions, a FAT32 and #2 is an NTFS at 450+mg.  When I first contacted you all I was going straight to a BSOD stop 7b.  After using Test Disk I now go to a Windows XP boot screen which freezes at about half boot.  (I think we're making some progress).

I have no Dell boot or recovery CD.  I have an XP system disk that last week use to allow me to get to Recovery Consel, today it will not.work and gives me the "file mountmgr.sys caused and unexpected error (47872) at line 5964 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c.  Press any key to continue"  error message.
I'm going to try a Win 2k disk next to see if that Recovery Consel will work.

Another update
I've got a Recovery Console to work.  I've run the fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg /rebuild with no significant changes.  I can run a directory of the c: drive (what I think is Winxp) and it shows "an error occured diruing directory enumeration".  

I've tried chkdsk /r (in Recovery Consol) and it returns "The volumn apppears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems."

I have a E: drive with a full directory one of the interesting files is dellboot.exe.  It won't run in Recovery Console mode.  Do you think that might be the file to start the Dell Recovery Partition working?

Did you already run the HDD Diagnostics from the UBCD, as I suggested above?
We must make sure it's not a hardware error.

As to the Dell Recovery Partition, I think you should not waste energy on it. For 2 reasons:
1. If the CTRL+F11 doesn't work, and if the partition setup is messed, it will not work anyhow.
2. The Dell Recovery, if it did work after all, would reset your PC into the state it was in when you first got it. All your personal data, settings and programmes would be lost. If we could make the Install CD function properly, you could do a Repair Install which would keep your data and settings intact.
3. "Dellboot.exe" is a utility that reboots the PC after having run the Dell diagnostic programme, delldiag.exe. So you were looking at the Dell utility partition, not the Dell restore partition.

The usual factory setup of a Dell looks like this:
a) hidden small utility partition (40 - 100 mb)
b) active OS partition
c) hidden restore partition (3 - 6 GB)

In order to find out what exactly may be going on on your system, and why TestDisk hasn't fixed it better (maybe you chose the wrong partition in TestDisk?) we need additional info.
Please do the following:
- boot off the UBCD, and select to start Parted Magic
- open a terminal window and type: fdisk -l (that's a small 'L')
- make a screenshot of the results with the screenshot utility, save the shot to an external USB (pen)drive
- click the "mount" tool and mount all your HD partitions until you found the one with the /windows folder (take note of its Linux ID, most probably "sda2")
- check if you can actually access the files on this partition (e.g. by opening a .txt. or .html file)
- if yes, check for the existence of .dmp files in the /windows/minidumps folder
- copy the 2-3 most recent ones to the USB drive, later rename them to .txt and attach them here as file attachments, together with the screenshot
- unmount all partitions
- start GParted, the partitioning tool (link on the desktop)
- select the windows partition (by the note you took above)
- right-click on it and check whether "set active" may be chosen as action; if yes do
- if possible, make another screenshot of the GParted window and attach it here together with the other files

ps:
Don't forget to run HDD diagnostics.

Lol, it's "3 reasons", not "2" ;)

Torimar
Good stuff here from you, thanks for the effort.  The set up is two physical drives.  The orginal drive was getting small and added a 500 gig about a year ago.  The larger ard drive I believe I'm seeing two partitions.  A small one using FAT16 and a 465 gig using NTFS.

I'm running SpinWrite on it now and it's got some time to go.  I'll tackle your request tomorrow.  Thanks again.  Talk tomorrow.

Dan

Didn't you already run Spinrite? At least you said so above.

As to your disk setup:
Let's say HDD1 is the original Dell HD, you then added HDD2 with 500 gb.
Did you leave HDD1 as it was, as the primary disk that holds Windows and that the system boots from?
Or did you clone HDD1 to HDD2 (so that the system now boots from HDD2), then reformat HDD1 to recover space?
Which of these disks is the one with the FAT16 partition?

Torimar
My apologees for being a day late.  I've not lost interest.  Just taking care of customers.  Have to prioritize.  

I hope I've done all you requested.  I've got some screen shots attached.  I've run Test Disk. I can mount the Windows (sda2)  partition and I've accessed files in that partition.  I've run HDD (Test Disk in Parted Magic).
There are no files in the minidump folder in Windows.  I've run GParted and can see the sda2.  Right click does not present an option to set active.

Thanks
Dan
Screenshot-1.png
Screenshot-2.png
Screenshot.png

Hi DwEckert,

it's a long holiday weekend over here, so I am reviewing this on a friend's laptop without access to any of my resources or computers, including the Dell laptop.

Thus only some short remarks from my part:
-- you do not have a Dell Recovery partition on any of your drives. This makes it pointless to think of using the Dell way of recovering the system. You will have to run a normal Repair Installation.

-- both of your HDDs seem to have an identical Dell utility partition. This is very strange. Did you buy the second drive from Dell? Or did you clone the first drive?

-- please review my questions above concerning your HDD setup and answer them. Most important: is drive 1 (the small original one) still the one you boot from?

-- if 'yes' to the above, then the wrong partition is set to active.
Sorry, I made a mistake in my instructions concerning GParted: when right-clicking Sda2, you need to select "Manage flags", then set the "boot" flag, then "Apply" the pending operations and check whether the "boot" flag was removed from Sda1 (while still in GParted, you could quickly open a terminal, type fdisk -l and check whether the asterisk (*) has moved from Sda1 to Sda2.

Then please give us a current state of affairs:
- what happens on booting the system normally?
- are you able to select Safe Mode?
- are you able to boot the Installation CD, choose Repair, and proceed up to the screen where you select the OS to be repaired?
- anything else worth noting?

Torimar
Hope you're having a nice holiday. It's 87 degrees F. here in Florida today.
The second drive is a clone of the first. I did not buy it from Dell.  I used the utility HD Clone to copy the first drive about one year ago.
From what I understand / believe I'm booting from the new large drive.  I've checked the GParted settings and I believe I'm booting from the large Windows drive and acording to GParted this drive is set to boot.  
I can get to Recovrery Console now and the only option is the C: drive.  When I run chkdsk in Recovery Mode the error "The Volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems".    A straight boot takes me back to  the 7b Stop error every time including trying to get to safe mode.
When I boot and select the Boot to last good configuration it will go to the XP logo screen and freeze.  When booting to other selections, Safe Mode, to Normal it will boot to the 7b stop error.
The only working tool right now are UBD5 and XP Recovery Console disk.

Sorry for being back so late. Blame it on the excesses of last weekend.

Rechecking the screenshots you posted above, there is no doubt: you are indeed booting off the large 500 GB drive. BUT: unless you changed the boot flag after posting those screenshots, there is no doubt either that, on your larger HDD (sda), the small FAT16 partition is the active one: check the fdisk-screenshot and the position of the asterisk.

In order to avoid confusion, I'd suggest to disconnect the smaller HDD until the issue is solved.

Then try to make the correct partition active again, either by using GParted, or by any other tool found inside the UBCD > HDD > Partition Managers section. The "Ranish Partition Manager" is quite powerful; you would have to select your large Windows partition, then press "b" in order to set the boot flag, then "F2" to save.


If problems should prevail nonetheless: have you tried a Repair install so far?
(http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm)
It sure was not possible as long as your XP CD would not boot correctly, but now, since it boots to the Recovery Console, that should be an option, too.

Something else that might be a problem here is if your installed XP version has no servicepack included already, you won't be able to access partitions larger than 137GB. You can only access such large partitions if at least SP1 is installed already (you'd best startoff with SP3 right away to reduce your later updates).

A way to overcome that problem is first to install to a smaller partition, and once you have installed SP3 gparted to increase the size of the partition.

Torimar

My apologies for no repsonses for a month plus.  Travel, illness, work are my only reasons.  Also Expert Exchange insisted on membership before I could even access the forum.  I thought I had a memebership.  Now I have a new membership.  

Update: I have acquired a XP Home Disk and I'm attempting a repair install.  Which seemed to go well.  Until it got to "Installing Windows 39 minutes"  and then a freeze asking for input from mouse or keyboard.  This Dell Dimension has USB mouse and Keyboard only.  No PS2 connections.  The USB drives have not loaded at this phase of the repair / install and I cannot enter any commands.

The install freezes at File Needed  "the file asms on Windows XP Home Edition SP3 is needed"  it wants a path to that file.  Is there a way past this?

DwEckert,

nice to hear from you again.
It may take me a while to regain acquaintance with this case after the long interval.

Here's what I can say after a first check:

1. Before installation, have you followed my advice to disconnect the drive you do not want to boot from?

2. If booting off the large drive, did you make the Windows partition on it active?

A repair installation is not a clean new install. If the Windows you want to repair suffers from a misconfiguration of hard disks, then the repair installation will do the same.

3. Did you run diagnostics on those hard dirves?

4. Is the Windows you want to repair the same version (Home) and SP (SP3) as the one on your installation disk? If not so, the repair will not work, I'm afraid.


Last note:
You say the large disk is a clone of the small one? Then you do actually have a backup of your important data on the large one. You also have two Windows systems, one of which you don't need. Hence try the following:

- disconnect the *large* drive and see if the small one still boots when on its own.
- if not, use GParted to wipe the small drive (don't forget to wipe the Dell utility partition which you can't use anyway), create one big new NTFS partition, and install from your new CD.
- if yes, reconnect the large drive (make sure it sits on a SATA slot higher than the boot drive - check in BIOs, if you are not sure), then use it for data/storage/backup/programmes.

Of course, if you like that better, you could do the same with the large drive vice versa.

ps:

The "file needed" error on repair install may be due to a version conflict between the Windows you are running on the HDD and the Windows on the installation disk.

What XP Home disk version did you get? Is it a Dell version or something else?

asms errors during installation or repairs are usually caused by manufacturer's OEM versions of Windows.

Torimar

I've made significant progress since last week thanks to your suggestions.

I've been able to do a XP repair install on the small hard drive AND clone a copy of that repair to the large hard drive.  Both will now boot into XP with a nice clean desktop.

I'm not pleased with the partition configuration and want to change it.

Currently on both drives I have C: drive in a FAT format and it has the Dell recovery?, utility? Tools? files.

On the D: drive is the Windows XP operating system formated in NTFS.  I want them reversed.

When this machine is finished it's going to someone who doesn't know a carrot from a C: drive.  I foresee all kinds of problems if they should have to change the default to D: when it says C:.

Can we get D: to be C:?

To work with I have two good drives with XP loaded and working,  HD Clone Pro, a XP Home disk and Partition Magic.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Dan

DwEckert,

I'm not sure I understand this correctly.
So when you are in Windows you see two drives, a C and a D, and Windows itself resides on the D, whereas C is the small (usually ~100 mb) Dell utility partition?

In this case, something has gone terribly wrong here, because the Dell partition should be hidden and undetectable from within Windows.

But then XP works fine? Well, in this case there is no easy way to change the setup. Because if Windows works fine, it will have adapted all path references in the registry to the D drive. Reversing this or manually hiding the C drive (as it should be) would result in an unbootable Windows that no longer finds any required files.

You might (theoretically) run a registry search and replace each instance of the string "d:\" by the string "c:\", then boot off Parted Magic and hide the C partition - but that would be hundreds of thousands of replacements, and doing this in a running Windows is not advisable, so you would need something like the UBCD4Win boot disk.

On the other hand, if Windows runs fine on the D drive, there is no need at all to change anything. Windows will use the D drive as its root, will work with d:\windows, d:\program files, and d:\documents and settings\ just as well and smooth as if it were on C. Your computer illiterate user will not realize.
I have an old Windows 2000 box that is still in use, where Win2k resides on D, and I never ran into any problem in 9 years.

So my advice would be: don't fix a running system.

Sorry, the advice should be: Don't fix a working system ;)

Torimar

Thanks for your response and your wise advice.

I'm still comtemplating doing the following: now that I have two working drives I'm tempted to take the large 500 gig drive, reformat and repartion to one large c: drive and do a repair install.  My hope is that will give me one large C: Drive.  If it doesn't work I still have the small 150 gig drive to re clone back to the large drive if  I have to do another recovery.

My thinking is this.  I've worked  on this pc for over a year.  My first problem with it was a full drive, the reason for the existance of the large 500 gig.  Due to my own lack of experiece that what we were looking at was a full C: drive (Dell utilitity???, drivers??? whatever??? they are) and not the operating system and data files on D:.  The friend even added a large 500 gig external on her own to deal with the problem originally and store her photos, music.

How this thing got to this type partition set up with C: for Dell and D: for operating system, I don't have a clue but I'm seeing it's the root cause of all the problems. To solve the root cause of the problem and allow her to continue without a reaccurance I should try to get C: to the operating system (the classical setup) or my bet is we'll have to go through this again in a month.

Do you think my reformat, repartion, repair install on the 500 gig HD will work?

Dan

Thanks.  I will start with the Parted Magic deleteing the Dell partition.  I'll let you know.

Torimar

It WORKED.  I now have a working Windows XP Home on the large drive as a C: drive.  Now I have to load the drivers, antivirus and couple applications and I'm done.

Thanks for all your patience, support and good ideas.  I learned a lot on this one.  My thanks.

I have another PC that I must fix.  A Gateway GMM5478 with Vista that has extreme boot problems.   Would appreciate your thoughts on that one if your interested.

Thanks again.

Dan

Torimar... after many weeks you really came through.  Thanks so much.

Dan

Dan,

I'm happy to know it finally worked out well for you. Thanks for the points.

As to your other problem: we have lots of competent experts around here; I'm sure there will be many that could help you fix that Gateway. If nonetheless you still would like to hear my opinion, feel free to leave a comment with the link to your new thread in here.

I promise I shall review it. However, this is all that I'm able to promise because, as you may guess, no expert is equally competent in all kinds of matters.