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cwilliambrownFlag for United States of America

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Windows XP CD freezes at "examining startup environment" when accessing Recovery Console??

I have a Tecra 9000 with an unmountable boot volume.  I am trying to boot with the XP CD and get to the Recovery Console.  The CD boots, I'm able to select (R)epair BUT the window freezes while "examining startup environment."

I also tried booting with UBCD in order to fix the OS but it too fails to load completely?  Any ideas?
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John
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Try booting with a bootable CD like Bart's PE and see if you can run chkdisk on the damaged hard drive (do not do chkdsk /f) and see if you can determine if / how much damage.
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willcomp
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Some other thoughts:

Could be corrupt Windows install as well as failed hard disk.

UBCD4Win is built on Bart PE, so Bart PE will not load if UBCD4Win won't.
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I was trying to use UBCD4Win!
Computer was working fine.  A power failure caused it to reboot and it now comes up with the Unmountable Boot Volume Blue Screen.
I was hoping it was just corrupt OS files but it certainly could be a failed/bad HDD.  I'll run try running some diagnostics and see what happens.
Boot from a Knoppix or other live Linux CD and see if you can access hard disk and data files. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Run disk diagnostics using UBCD (not UBCD4Win).  http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Let us know results. It's difficult, if not impossible) to repair an XP installation if you can't use Recovery Console, UBCD4Win, or ERD Commander (which will probably also fail to load).

A repair install from XP CD likely won't work either but is worth a try if other avenues fail.
Hitachi's DFT returned the failure code: "0x73 - Defective Device. Excessive Shock"
Looks like it probably is the drive but I'm going to find the brand of the drive and run its specific diag utility before I look into replacing it.
Knoppix appears to have stalled at "Autoconfiguring Devices."  Looks like it probably is the drive.  I'm going to try running DiskPatch and see if it can be repaired??
Have you tried disk manufacture's diagnostics? Hitachi DFT should have identified the hard disk model even if not a Hitachi drive.
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matholland

Ive seen cases where this problem is actually the motherboard.  Doesn't sound like the case on this issue, sounds like the hard drive.  But if replacing the hard drive doesnt work then try the ram.  If that doesn't work its probably a faulty motherboard.
I definitely had a failed hard drive that was preventing UBCD for Windowsand similar utilities from booting.  The manufacturers diagnostics confirmed it.  I replaced the drive and was able to access and reinstall Windows XP.
Thanks for your help!