Computer Help

[hbk409]

My wifes laptop all of a sudden will not load windows, she has windows xp professional. Last night i would get it to boot up then it would freeze up and not do anything once I was in windows. Tonight tried it again came up with this error message

missing
\windows\system32\config\system

i tried to put in my home edition to try to copy that file would not allow me to from the recovery console. If i tried to reinstall windows is says cannot find a previous verion and to insert another windows product cd. I want to try to get some of the files off the computer if possible. I know i had an issue about a year ago with my desktop harddrive where i wasnt able to boot into windows came up missing bootldr. If i made that hard drive a slave drive in my desktop is was still able to get to all the files.

 

[StevenD]

Go buy a Windows XP CD. It should install over anything, and as long as you dont format the drive, all your files should be there.

 

[hbk409]

Go buy a Windows XP CD. It should install over anything, and as long as you dont format the drive, all your files should be there.

i tried that but i just have the xp upgrade edition and when i try it says to insert and earlier windows disc

 

[hbk409]

ok so i found a windows 2000 cd i had try to use that, now the computer just keeps shutting off at random times, sometimes it lets me get to the blue window setup screen were it ask if i want to install then shuts down. other times it shuts down right when it say to boot from cd. aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh

 

[Neutron]

Have you checked it for computer viruses? Some can cause boot problems.

 

[LonghornXP]

I have a feeling that this is a virus because Windows XP has WFP (Windows File Protection) which would replace any deleted or altered system file. If its not a virus my next best guess would be to check the power supply and I'm not talking about the power cord the the actual power supply inside the notebook case itself. When a power supply goes bad it can appear as a virus and as many things. If its not the power supply my next guess would be the hard drive itself. Some of this you can be able to check on your own while others might require a service call.

 

[Mark_AR]

I agree with LongHornXP's assessment.

Notebooks usually don't have an internal power supply though, so unless the connector on the motherboard is loose I doubt it would be the cause.

I'd say it may be the drive or drive controller.

Just to add to it and this is a longshot.... I had a computer that had a bad IDE(Hard drive controller) which wouldn't allow me to recover/install XP. I ended up replacing the motherboard and everything was fine.

This is not very likely on a laptop, but could happen.

If you know what kind of drive, you may be able to download diagnostic software from the manufacturer of the drive.

Seagate offers Seatools and there are others that are free/shareware to check drive integrity.

Upgrade requirements... You can insert any windows product to get it to install. Either 95, 98, 98SE, NT, 2000, or ME if you have the CD or borrow one. You don't have to install them first, just have the disk handy to prove that you are upgrading without installing.

Hope you get to the root of the problem.... Without corrupting/losing your data.

 

[korsjs]

i would go with what the last two said. they are very smart and one of them has helped me very much with my cpu problems.

 

[hbk409]

i thought it might be the hard drive went to compusa today and was telling one of the techs what was happening said it didnt sound like a hard drive error but either a power supply or that the motherboard went bad came home and check the price for a new motherboard from the compaq website and it was $445, the computer is almost 3 yrs old. I dont know if it would be worth it for the new motherboard or should i just get a new cheap laptop. The wife usually just uses it for websurfing.

Longhorn how would i go about checking the power supply?

 

[LonghornXP]

i thought it might be the hard drive went to compusa today and was telling one of the techs what was happening said it didnt sound like a hard drive error but either a power supply or that the motherboard went bad came home and check the price for a new motherboard from the compaq website and it was $445, the computer is almost 3 yrs old. I dont know if it would be worth it for the new motherboard or should i just get a new cheap laptop. The wife usually just uses it for websurfing.

Longhorn how would i go about checking the power supply?

To a previus poster all laptops have an internat power supply. Also to start if you are trying to install Windows XP Pro and Windows XP Pro asks for a previos version of Windows all those versions listed will work. But if you have an upgrade copy of Windows XP Home Edition only a previous Windows 98/98SE and ME disk will work. Windows NT and Windows 2000 disks won't allow an upgrade Windows XP Home installation.

To sum it up below.

Windows XP Home Edition supported upgrade disks = 98/98SE and ME.
Windows XP Pro Edition supported upgrade disks = 98/98SE, ME, NT and 2000.

Now the answer to replacing an internal power supply on a three year old notebook. Don't bother with it because you need pretty specific tools to take the entire notebook apart to change it and also finding a custom replacement might cost you more than the notebook if you do it yourself compared to getting it fixed. I hate to say this your really screwed.

My suggestion is to download an iso for a hard drive tester directly from your drive maker and use this to do a low level format but this will take a very long time. Once that is done if things still don't work I would say its your power supply. Now if the low level format and/or drive tester fails or errors I would say its your drive. But in rare cases a drive could fail because the power supply isn't sending correct voltages. I saw one person fry 8 280 dollar motherboards one after the other because of a bad power supply. What was amazing is that by the time I found out what he did and how many boards he fried I couldn't believe that he only paid for one motherboard. He bought one brand from one company and got a free replacement and the company gave him his money back instead of getting a third replacement. He did this three total times and his ninth board he avoided frying when I showed up and he told me the ordeal.

All I have to say is what dumbass companies these were replaceing that many boards. Amazing three different stores relaced one board and than on top of that took back a second board and gave his money back. If only I could get away with something like that.

Sorry for my rant but your topic brought that memory back.

Also if this is a hard drive it would be your cheapest option by far but might still be a pain to replace it because older laptops didn't always have easy access memory and hard drive slots and bays.

I hope this helps you out.

 

[hdtvtechno]

Here download a copy of Knoppix Boot-up rescue CD

and burn it to a cd-r, or whatever.

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44

and use that cd to try and see if it boots up, and then u can save ur files, from u hard drive

 

[hdtvtechno]

or buy a USB / IDE Hard drive External Enclosures Case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=list&SubCategory=92

that way the hard drive doesn't have to boot up, it'll just use the usb connection

 

[hbk409]

To a previus poster all laptops have an internat power supply. Also to start if you are trying to install Windows XP Pro and Windows XP Pro asks for a previos version of Windows all those versions listed will work. But if you have an upgrade copy of Windows XP Home Edition only a previous Windows 98/98SE and ME disk will work. Windows NT and Windows 2000 disks won't allow an upgrade Windows XP Home installation.

To sum it up below.

Windows XP Home Edition supported upgrade disks = 98/98SE and ME.
Windows XP Pro Edition supported upgrade disks = 98/98SE, ME, NT and 2000.

I hope this helps you out.

longhorn, when i put in the windows 2000 cd it let me processed and showed that it was installing, kept getting alot of error messages that this file could not be found hit F8(i think) to proceed.

I told my wife that we should look at getting her a new laptop, and shes up set because she spent the money on this one and its only three years old i tried telling her that we could get a comparable computer now for like 5-600. This is actually the second time this happened last year right before our wedding we had a problem where the power supply plugs into the laptop, sent it to them they fixed it. got it back a day before the wedding, the dumbass that worked on it

1)after i called in and told them the problem they were like well may have to format the harddrive. I told them its definatly not the harddrive just the power supply connection on the laptop. They said well if the hd is ok then will wont reformat it. after explianing that it wasnt the hard drive for like 30mins and not to format got it back sure enough it was formated Which really sucked because it had all of our honeymoon info on it

2)They didnt hook the wireless card up right, so the whole time we didnt have internet Which really sucked because all the hotel we were in had wireless internet and the airports. One of our layovers was 6hours in san jose.

This is why i would never send anything back to compaq or hp, no regard for you information

 

[LonghornXP]

longhorn, when i put in the windows 2000 cd it let me processed and showed that it was installing, kept getting alot of error messages that this file could not be found hit F8(i think) to proceed.

I told my wife that we should look at getting her a new laptop, and shes up set because she spent the money on this one and its only three years old i tried telling her that we could get a comparable computer now for like 5-600. This is actually the second time this happened last year right before our wedding we had a problem where the power supply plugs into the laptop, sent it to them they fixed it. got it back a day before the wedding, the dumbass that worked on it

1)after i called in and told them the problem they were like well may have to format the harddrive. I told them its definatly not the harddrive just the power supply connection on the laptop. They said well if the hd is ok then will wont reformat it. after explianing that it wasnt the hard drive for like 30mins and not to format got it back sure enough it was formated Which really sucked because it had all of our honeymoon info on it

2)They didnt hook the wireless card up right, so the whole time we didnt have internet Which really sucked because all the hotel we were in had wireless internet and the airports. One of our layovers was 6hours in san jose.

This is why i would never send anything back to compaq or hp, no regard for you information

Well with what you said I would also consider your CD-ROM drive being bad and also that your installation XP disk is bad. If you try and install from another installation disk does it error. The more I think about it I would download Knoppix and if that loads up and runs fine you can rule out your power supply, CD-ROM drive and most of the other components. Now Knoppix won't help you if you have a bad drive because Knoppix most likely would still identify it even though its still a bad drive.

But because you said you had previous power supply problems my best bet would be its the power supply. I will say this much that Compaq has very bad customer support and I would go with a Dell laptop. I would say go with IBM but I don't know how bad there support could get with there changeover.

 

[hbk409]

i downloaded the knoppix before i went to work, going to try it tonight. One question i had about the knoppix, if i get it working would i be able to get files off the hard drive? I will also tryloading the windows xp cd onto a desktop, dont think it would be a corrupt cd, only used it once and put it back in the box.

 

[LonghornXP]

i downloaded the knoppix before i went to work, going to try it tonight. One question i had about the knoppix, if i get it working would i be able to get files off the hard drive? I will also tryloading the windows xp cd onto a desktop, dont think it would be a corrupt cd, only used it once and put it back in the box.

Knoppix can read and copy files from the hard drive onto something external like a CD-R, external hard drive, USB drive and the like. Also one road block you could have on copying files is is your hard drive is formatted with NTFS. If your drive is FAT32 you would be set in stone but NTFS could be a problem. Some Linux distros can handle reading and copying of NTFS and I don't know if Knoppix is one of them because I haven't used them. I mostly use Gentoo because I tend to like portage better than apt.

 

[hbk409]

so i came home and before trying knoppix i figured i would try windows xp one more time got up to 27% the it came back with an error message

Setup has determined that drive c is corrupted and cannot be repaired.
Setup cannot continue.

im thinking this hopefully means i just need to replace the hard drive.

 

[LonghornXP]

so i came home and before trying knoppix i figured i would try windows xp one more time got up to 27% the it came back with an error message

Setup has determined that drive c is corrupted and cannot be repaired.
Setup cannot continue.

im thinking this hopefully means i just need to replace the hard drive.

Does the Windows XP installation actually say drive C or just that "a" drive is corrupted. If it does say drive C that could mean that the drive is fine but the FAT among other things is corrupted and Windows using these tables to check drive integrity. But if the error just says a disk is bad and doesn't specify which one that could mean your install disk. A virus could cause a windows xp install disk to say that drive c is bad because that specific virus could screw about with the FAT, MFT or something else so that XP would detect a bad disk to make it harder to install. My suggestion is to download a low level formater from your drive makers website and do this. Any clusters along with about anything else will be wiped and cleaned.

 

[hbk409]

Does the Windows XP installation actually say drive C or just that "a" drive is corrupted. If it does say drive C that could mean that the drive is fine but the FAT among other things is corrupted and Windows using these tables to check drive integrity. But if the error just says a disk is bad and doesn't specify which one that could mean your install disk. A virus could cause a windows xp install disk to say that drive c is bad because that specific virus could screw about with the FAT, MFT or something else so that XP would detect a bad disk to make it harder to install. My suggestion is to download a low level formater from your drive makers website and do this. Any clusters along with about anything else will be wiped and cleaned.

it specifically says c drive. i guess when you say drive maker you mean like wd,maxtor,etc. Anyone know who makes the compaq drives?

also if i do this i will be sure to lose all the info correct? is there anyway to try and salvage the data before a format? maybe to connect the harddrive to my desktop and move the files i wanted to save?

 

[kenny4269]

Microsoft's fix for that particular error:
Search for article 307545 at microsoft's support site.
(I'd post the URL, but the spam filter is blocking me.)

Unless your HD is totally corrupt, this usually works.