I did a search on google and in the forums for this problem, but I didn't find it, probably just using the wrong search terms. I'm posting my question in hopes of getting the answer before I have to try to take other measures and possibly be sorry.
I need to know either how to fix it (preferably) or how to access the info under the user's c:\documents and settings\ folder(s) so that I can back it up to fix it.
I tried posting this a couple of days ago, but could not because I'm a new user and they won't let me post URLs to the places I reference where I found the help previous to posting in here. I have taken the time to take out the URLs and rephrase some of it so that you can know or figure out what website I'm talking about and look up the page if you need to.
Original post below:
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I have a bit of a problem I can't seem to figure out with a WinXP (with SP2 installed).
Just after XP gets to the "loading XP" with the blue dots racing across the screen in a box, but before the desktop is shows up, the computer reboots (goes back to the BIOS page showing memory, hard disk, BOIS revisions etc.). This is problem 4. problems and fixes leading up to this are below.
The underlying problems may have started earlier, but I'll explain the events leading up to this latest problem.
1st: My sister used a
program called "Double Killer" I think to delete some files that she had in multiple places on her hard drive. This caused most of her desktop links (the icons on the desktop, quick start bar, etc.) to become inoperative. Problem there was that she didn't limit it to certain folders and so the program picked up doubles in the system folders and such (I believe this is what happened, at least).
No biggy I thought, I went in found a restore point from 2 days before this and used. The system won't boot properly after this. This is where problem 2 came in at.
2nd: After the BIOS page and the POST and such, the error message "Missing or corrupt file" came up stating that "NTOSKRNL.EXE" was missing or corrupt.
Ack!! O.K. so I do a google search for the error and found this page describing how to fix it: (unable to use URLs, so goto the Ozzu site and lookup ftopic23580). Basically it describes how to copy the file form the CD and from another place on the hard drive.
Done, feeling good I reboot....ACK!!
3rd:
error message about couldn't load "system32\NTfs.sys"
I did a google on that error and found a site on how to fix it (I apparently didn't bookmark the page, sorry). I think I did a search for it on the XP CD-ROM and copied that file over.
Now the problem I'm hung up on:
4th: System seems to start fine, gets to the select screen for how you want to start windows (normally, safemode, safemode with networking, etc.). I thought this is good, sense it's further than I'd gotten in the past. I selected "Load windows normally". It got to the "loading XP" window and reboot.
It paused at the windows boot select screen described above. I tried safe mode figuring on doing a chkdsk on the disk, safemode lead to the reboot. So did every other option on that menu.
The only solution I found was this one on Microsoft's support site:
default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341 . (You can probably just search the MS KB for 315341 and get by with it.)
Basically it describes an "upgrade in place"....basically re-installing without cleaning up first. They also mention deleting a file called "Undo_guimode.txt" before I do this so that I don't loose some data. (Checked that, I think i'm safe from that part, hooked up to another PC and didn't find it at the listed location, and a windows search of the entire drive did not pick up a file by that or similar name.)
That seems pretty radical to me (I never did like to do brain surgery to fix an in-grown toe nail). On top of that I can't access the files in the user's "documents and settings" folder on another computer to back up the info in case of loss. I thought that that might be because the user name requires a password.
Now I need to either back up that info in the Documents and settings folder and the the other info not in there (I've got most if not all of it saved in a different place on the drive waiting to be copied to another drive). It let me copy the documents and settings from one spot on the same hard drive to another spot, but it will not let me copy it to another drive so I can do a clean install (partition, format, re-install etc.). The "upgrade in place" that I posted the link to above is what I called a "dirty install" when I was doing the same on Windows 98SE (Actually, that I manually deleted "c:\windows", "command.com", "autoexe.bat" etc. A "nasty install" was when I didn't even do that for what ever reason.)
I would like to repair this if possible, if not I need to access the files in documents and settings that I get a 'permission denied' error on trying to read or copy.
Thank you for your time;
bdraft
I need to know either how to fix it (preferably) or how to access the info under the user's c:\documents and settings\ folder(s) so that I can back it up to fix it.
I tried posting this a couple of days ago, but could not because I'm a new user and they won't let me post URLs to the places I reference where I found the help previous to posting in here. I have taken the time to take out the URLs and rephrase some of it so that you can know or figure out what website I'm talking about and look up the page if you need to.
Original post below:
************************
I have a bit of a problem I can't seem to figure out with a WinXP (with SP2 installed).
Just after XP gets to the "loading XP" with the blue dots racing across the screen in a box, but before the desktop is shows up, the computer reboots (goes back to the BIOS page showing memory, hard disk, BOIS revisions etc.). This is problem 4. problems and fixes leading up to this are below.
The underlying problems may have started earlier, but I'll explain the events leading up to this latest problem.
1st: My sister used a
program called "Double Killer" I think to delete some files that she had in multiple places on her hard drive. This caused most of her desktop links (the icons on the desktop, quick start bar, etc.) to become inoperative. Problem there was that she didn't limit it to certain folders and so the program picked up doubles in the system folders and such (I believe this is what happened, at least).
No biggy I thought, I went in found a restore point from 2 days before this and used. The system won't boot properly after this. This is where problem 2 came in at.
2nd: After the BIOS page and the POST and such, the error message "Missing or corrupt file" came up stating that "NTOSKRNL.EXE" was missing or corrupt.
Ack!! O.K. so I do a google search for the error and found this page describing how to fix it: (unable to use URLs, so goto the Ozzu site and lookup ftopic23580). Basically it describes how to copy the file form the CD and from another place on the hard drive.
Done, feeling good I reboot....ACK!!
3rd:
error message about couldn't load "system32\NTfs.sys"
I did a google on that error and found a site on how to fix it (I apparently didn't bookmark the page, sorry). I think I did a search for it on the XP CD-ROM and copied that file over.
Now the problem I'm hung up on:
4th: System seems to start fine, gets to the select screen for how you want to start windows (normally, safemode, safemode with networking, etc.). I thought this is good, sense it's further than I'd gotten in the past. I selected "Load windows normally". It got to the "loading XP" window and reboot.
It paused at the windows boot select screen described above. I tried safe mode figuring on doing a chkdsk on the disk, safemode lead to the reboot. So did every other option on that menu.
The only solution I found was this one on Microsoft's support site:
default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341 . (You can probably just search the MS KB for 315341 and get by with it.)
Basically it describes an "upgrade in place"....basically re-installing without cleaning up first. They also mention deleting a file called "Undo_guimode.txt" before I do this so that I don't loose some data. (Checked that, I think i'm safe from that part, hooked up to another PC and didn't find it at the listed location, and a windows search of the entire drive did not pick up a file by that or similar name.)
That seems pretty radical to me (I never did like to do brain surgery to fix an in-grown toe nail). On top of that I can't access the files in the user's "documents and settings" folder on another computer to back up the info in case of loss. I thought that that might be because the user name requires a password.
Now I need to either back up that info in the Documents and settings folder and the the other info not in there (I've got most if not all of it saved in a different place on the drive waiting to be copied to another drive). It let me copy the documents and settings from one spot on the same hard drive to another spot, but it will not let me copy it to another drive so I can do a clean install (partition, format, re-install etc.). The "upgrade in place" that I posted the link to above is what I called a "dirty install" when I was doing the same on Windows 98SE (Actually, that I manually deleted "c:\windows", "command.com", "autoexe.bat" etc. A "nasty install" was when I didn't even do that for what ever reason.)
I would like to repair this if possible, if not I need to access the files in documents and settings that I get a 'permission denied' error on trying to read or copy.
Thank you for your time;
bdraft