[HGS8798]

Afternoon all. Wife's laptop a dell 6000 may have gotten sick from a thumb drive that a fellow worker shared. I rebooted from disk because that's all i know how to do. I ran chksk to check for errors it said she had errors in volome what ever that is? what can I do next before she has to bring it someware to be checked. thanks to everyone who might help!

[Rollin' Rog]

If check disk was able to fix the errors -- you are probably fine.

Did you run chkdsk /r ?

If not, the errors were just noted and nothing was fixed.

To verify whether the drive is still corrupt in some way,(this has to be done in Windows) open a command prompt

Start > Run cmd

At the prompt enter:

fsutil dirty query X

Where X is the letter of the drive you want to check.

If chkdsk has repaired the drive it will say 'X' is NOT Dirty.

If chkdsk cannot repair the drive after repeated tries I would recover any data I could from it -- and if it is under warranty, return it.

[HGS8798]

thank you for your hint . I tried chkdsk/r and the report said fixed one or more errors.then I try to boot and windows-xp screen starts. then pauses then a quick light blue screen pops up . I can't read what it says. Then a restart screen comes up saying restart normally or last known. How can i read that blue screen or what do you think I might do next if anything to reboot wife's pc. thanks for time helpfull hints.

[techkid]

When it comes up with the Windows Boot Options screen (Start Windows Normally, Last Known, etc), select Safe Mode. Let us know how this goes, and we can instruct you from there.

[Rollin' Rog]

There is an option on the F8 boot menu screen to disable the automatic restart; this will allow you to read the error parameters; note especially the driver file if mentioned.

If you can start in Safe Mode, let us know.

[HGS8798]

Thanks for help. Safe mode was a no go it tried but stopped. It printed multi(0) disk(0)etc But when I did F8 to stop the restart this is what it said STOP C0000218[Registry File Failure] The registry cannot load the hive(file)\systemroot\system32\config\sam or its log or alternate .It is corrupt,absent,or not writable. Beginning dump of physical memory.Physical memory dump complete. That's what was written it sounds bad but make no sense to me. Thanks for any and all help with this problem.Hope to hear soon and thanks again.

[HGS8798]

Hi I tried safe mode and the works but I dont know how to move forward. online help says use a tape backup or do whole reinstall. Is there any thing else I can try first or should I do some other test. As always thank you all for this help

[HGS8798]

safe mode was a no go so was F8 I have more details on next post thanks for your time

[Rollin' Rog]

Ok, that's a nasty error which means your registry is corrupt.

You have a couple of options 1 > an upgrade/reinstall if you have an XP setup disk, or that option available in your OEM recovery media.

OR, last resort, you can try the instructions here:

USING THE RECOVERY CONSOLE TO ACCESS SYSTEM RESTORE


If you do not have an XP CD download rc.iso from Elvandil's post here: http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt...ml#post4622868
Burn the .iso file to CD. With Nero or Roxio you should only need to "open" the file and it will start the burner's ISO burning progr

DeepBurner can also be used to burn ISO files, I recommend the “portable” version:

http://www.deepburner.com/?r=download


Once that is done, you need to boot with either that or the XP installation CD to the Recovery Console. You may need to ensure that the CD drive is the first boot drive in the BIOS setup if it just boots to the same screen. Setup is accessed by looking for the key to press on the first data you see on the screen -- often F2

Directions are given here:

http://attachments.techguy.org/attac...chmentid=62075

There are several things to note about this operation.

1 > it is not a "reinstall" of Windows, but a method of accessing System Restore.

2 > all command lines are one line with appropriate spacing -- the doc file does not always reflect this.

3 > you must complete all 3 parts for it to be a proper restore.

4 > in the first part of this document you are given the command:

copy C:\windows\repair\system C:\windows\system32\config\system

you may get a "file not found" when running this command. If you do, substitute this command instead:

copy C:\windows\repair\system.bak C:\windows\system32\config\system


>> See also: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us
note the warning in this article. But if you have an OEM system and no other choice but a clean install -- try it anyway.

HP systems are particularly subject to the warning.