Recovery Console problems

[Slikkster]

Only use those commands in the VRE. They're part of the VRE, and not Bartpe or UBCD, so you couldn't use bootrec there even if you wanted to.

I should have specified that when you get to the D: command prompt, type c: and enter to get to the C: drive, then run those two commands:

Make sure you're at the c: prompt.

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot


EDIT: I found this on another tech website. I will assume for this that you have just booted with the DVD and have started the VRE: Try the following commands:

copy c:\boot\bcd c:\boot\bcd_backup <hit enter>

c: <hit enter>

d:\boot\bootsect.exe -NT60 SYS c: /force <hit enter>

Reboot to the Vista Boot DVD again.

Click on the startup recovery option at the top.

Reboot.

 

[enon8727]

Oh yea, sorry. Well that didn't work either. I'm so lost. Any more ideas? I just don't understand how I can't do anything to the files in UBCD. It just won't let me move them, or copy, paste or anything.

 

[Slikkster]

Boot to the VRE again.

Type:

bcdedit <hit enter>

copy and paste the info it shows you here.

Just so you know what it should look like (and remember, your output info will not be the same as my example below, just similar), here's the format:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {ntldr}
{current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=C:
path \ntldr
description Earlier Version of Windows

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {1ecfd635-a8ea-11db-bb9b-ddf07c6aaff1}
nx OptIn

 

[enon8727]

Windows Boot Manager
---------------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
default {default}
displayorder {default}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------------
identifier {default}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista <TM> Ultimate
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows

 

[Slikkster]

I'm no expert on the output of your bcdedit report, but it looks woefully incomplete. There's no mention of the "Legacy OS", which would be XP, in your case. It also seems to be missing some general entries in the other two sections. I'll do some more snooping around when I can.

Edit: I have to say that at this point, I would consider just replacing the Vista boot loader (bootmgr) with XP's boot loader. Oddly enough, it's probably easier to fix Vista (if you want to) after getting XP back on line. There are freeware apps that make it much easier to manipulate and repair the Vista boot issues, but they actually need to be run from an operating system.

What this would require is to boot with the XP RECOVERY CONSOLE, not the Vista DVD VRE.

So, you'll need to boot from the XP CD, choose "R" for repair, and go into the Recovery Console. Once there, I would run the fixboot command:

fixboot c: <enter>

That will overwrite the Vista boot loader and reinstall the XP boot loader. This assumes, of course, that your XP boot files are on C:, which I believe you said they were (boot.ini, ntldr, etc.)

Reboot without CD. You should have XP back in business. Let me know if you want to proceed then in repairing Vista.

 

[enon8727]

Wow, so I haven't done any of the above yet, but I just booted up and it booted right into Vista no problem. I don't know how, but that works now. But it didn't give me the option of which OS I wanted. So should I go ahead and do the afore mentioned commands, or is there something I can do in Vista?

 

[Slikkster]

Are you saying all of the sudden it started working and you did nothing right before?


Obviously, don't do the XP Recovery Disk fixboot now that Vista is running!


Now there are things you can do within Vista to get back XP on the menu, and to do other customizations to the boot menu, as well. There are a couple of FREE Vista boot loader config tools. I haven't used either, obviously, so I can't say "hey, this one rules!". But of the two I've found, one stands out for easy access to documentation right on its website.

It's called EasyBCD, and uses a graphical interface to easily customize the boot loader, rather than Microsoft's wisdom of command line tools, only.

Ok, here's the program itself to be installed inside Vista:

http://neosmart.net/downloads/software/EasyBCD/EasyBCD%201.52.exe

But please, read the documentation first about how to "Add an entry" to the boot menu, specifically how to add XP (as this tool makes it easy to add many other OS's, like Linux, Mac OSX, even the old OS/2).

Here's the documentation:

http://neosmart.net/wiki/download/attachments/3/EasyBCD+Documentation.pdf

The first page will show you a table of contents and links to which OS to add to the boot menu. Click on the Windows XP entry, of course. You'll be brought to page 20 of 34 in the pdf file. Just read and follow the instructions, particularly as they apply to whether "boot.ini" resides on the same partition as the "boot" folder for Vista, etc. It should be pretty foolproof if you read carefully.

Then, just do as it says and you should be good to go.

 

[enon8727]

Wow again. So I followed your instructions and EasyBCD's instructions:
1. Run EasyBCD, and go to the Add/Remove Entries screen.
2. From the drop-down menu, select Windows XP,
3. Press the "Add Entry" button.
then I rebooted with nothing in my dvd drive and still got the 'bootmgr is missing' message. So I put the XP cd in the drive to do what you said a couple of posts back, and just out of curiosity, when it said press any key to boot from cd, I just sat there and it brought up the "Select an OS" screen! So I can get into XP and Vista if the XP cd is in the drive and choose not to boot from cd....I don't know why though, you have any ideas?

P.S. I'm thinking the sudden bootup of Vista worked last time because I had the Vista DVD in the drive. Not saying that whichever OS's disk is in the drive, that's what it'll boot to, it's just that last time (before I did the EasyBCD editing) Vista was the default (and only) boot option.

 

[enon8727]

And I just got a BSOD
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

 

[Slikkster]

I did ask you before in a prior post (easily missed, I'm sure) if you could boot to Vista from the Vista DVD, because lots of other people with that bootmgr missing error found that if the Vista DVD were in the drive, they could still boot to Vista on the hard drive.

Anyway, again, I think your best bet at this point would be to restore the XP boot manager. Then, you have options to either fix Vista, or delete it (and its boot files) and reinstall it from the trial DVD.

As far as the IRQL blue screen, I would reseat the ram modules, blow out any dust inside the pc, reseat the drive cables, reseat the add-on cards (PCI/AGP).

Do that first.

Then, boot to the XP CD. Choose "R" for Repair.

First, I would run a chkdsk on your drives.

syntax=

chkdsk c: /p

let it do its thing

chkdsk d: /p

(and whatever other hard drives you have, repeat the command with appropriate drive letters).

After you've chkdsk'd all your hard drives, run the fixboot command:

fixboot c:

Reboot without the XP CD. XP should boot right up. Then, we can go about removing Vista (to reinstall) or trying to repair the boot loader.

 

[enon8727]

On the C: chkdsk it got to 50% hung for about ten minutes and came back with, "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems."
D's chkdsk went fine.

At fixboot c: I got
The target partition is C:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C:? Y
The file system on the startup partition is unknown.
FIXBOOT is attempting to detect the file system type.

The bootsector is corrupt.
FIXBOOT is checking the filesystem type...
The partition is using the FAT file system.

FIXBOOT is writing a new boot sector.

The boot sector cannot be fixed.

 

[Slikkster]

Well, those issues are probably the root of your problems to begin with.

In recovery console, choose:

fixmbr

then

fixboot

 

[enon8727]

Yea, probably This sucks.

fixmbr
The old master boot record cannot be read.

Edit: So I guess just creating a new boot.ini file from the EasyBCD documentation won't help then? If not, what about running a repair install of XP? Or is there something else I can do?

 

[Slikkster]

Use the fixmbr command with the additional info that specifies which mbr to fix:

fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0

That's a zero, not an o.

space between fixmbr and \Device\HardDisk0

 

[enon8727]

It warned me about making a new boot sector, asked if I really wanted and I said yes. Still no go.
Now when booting without anything in the disk drive it seems like it always wants to boot to cd even though I have the first boot device in BIOS set to the hard disk, because I get "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

 

[Slikkster]

You need to be more specific about what happened with "fixmbr". You said "Still no go".
Did it actually do anything, or did it come up with an error? Seems like it did run a "fix".

Now, before proceeding any further, I think it's safe to assume that your primary hard drive is a bit flaky, given the intermittent and unexplainable problems with error messages, chkdsk messages about unrecoverable errors, etc. I would start backing up stuff (from your documents, etc.) onto another drive if you haven't done so already. This is imperative. Use BartPE for that, or UBCD, assuming UBCD can read NTFS drives.


When you're through with that, we can try and proceed.

 

[enon8727]

Yea, it did seem like it did what it was supposed to at the fixmbr \device\harddisk0 command. But then I just got that error that I stated previously. I'll go ahead and boot into UBCD and start backing stuff up. But just now I tried to see if I could boot up to Vista with the Vista DVD in like I'd been able to before and I got:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Edit: It won't even let me boot to UBCD now. I've tried 4 times and each time it gets to a different point before it freezes. You think there's something wrong with the disk? I'm about the throw this whole thing out of a window and set fire to it.

 

[Slikkster]

can you try:

fixboot c:

again?

First of all, Recovery Console (XP) probably won't even find an installation if it's totally hosed. If not and it still sees your XP installation, then at least you know you're good for now.

I'm still very concerned about the inability of chkdsk to do a repair of your drive. The unrecoverable errors are NEVER a good sign.

Have you tried booting with BartPE instead of the UBCD?

Also, it may be time to start stripping down the unnecessary hardware in the box to rule out any problems with extraneous devices. That means pulling the power and cable connectors for things like the floppy, sound card, any other PCI card that's not needed for simply booting up, etc.

You might even try taking out a stick of ram one at a time and testing to see if you still get the same errors. Same error with one stick out? Put that stick back in and remove the other one.

Any heat buildup in this computer case? Try running with side cover(s) off, too, to make sure you don't have a heat issue.

So, you have some things to try (above).

 

[enon8727]

Fixboot says it cannot open the partition. Chkdsk (I tried again) doesn't even appear to scan just hangs a few minutes then says, "there seems to be one or more unrecoverable errors on the drive", BartPE works, I can boot to it no problem for some reason. But when I try UBCD or anything else it just freezes at random times. I don't think it's a hardware problem other than my C: drive is effed for somehow. Heat and dust isn't a problem. I may try removing some hardware, but Idk.

What can I do in BartPE? I tried just switching to the C drive for the prompt and it says, "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable." So am I just completely SOL? Do you think I should try a repair installation of XP like this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341/en-us ? It seems like it's my last option...

Do you have any idea what could've caused this and/or why so suddenly? Or any way to prevent this type of thing from happening again? I have so many problems with this machine, it's unreal. I just built it a year ago and I've had to reinstall XP probably four or five times. Also a few pages back you said to remind you of some kind of program or something to recommend to me, but I'll check it out and get back to you with more specifics. Please try to address all my questions if possible. And, again, thank you for sticking with me this whole time, I really appreciate your help.

 

[Slikkster]

Sorry that this is happening. As far as "why" is concerned, disk drives eventually fail. I think that given the nature of the sequence of events and errors (that should have been easily fixed but weren't) that the drive was already tanking, and it probably kicked when it couldn't complete the recovery console commands successfully. In other words, a half-written fixmbr, for example, is going to leave you in a perilous state.

At this stage, I would change my focus to data recovery. UBCD has a tool in the Partiton Manager section called "TestDisk". If your CD isn't booting, burn another iso of it. TestDisk appears to be your best FREE option to see if any repair can be made to this disk, or at least to recover data from it.

If you want to spend the money on the absolute best drive maintenance and repair tool, you can get GRC.com's Spinrite. It's about $89, and there's no demo version. If you buy it online, run it, and there's a box to create an ISO of it.

You also have the option of taking this hosed drive out of the "C: position for now and installing XP on a separate drive, and trying to do repair/recovery work on it as a slave drive.

You need to get "Testdisk" running from UBCD. Maybe it's stalling as it tries to query the hosed drive. You can always disconnect it as a test and try to boot from UBCD to see if it runs OK. If you get Testdisk running, you have to let it know (from what I can read in the documentation) that you're looking to recover NTFS partitions/files.

 

[enon8727]

I tell you what...unless this thing completely, literally explodes, I don't know what else can go wrong. I don't want to spend money on recovery...and I think it's beyond that anyway. So I disconnected the C: drive and started installing XP on the other hard drive. So I get to the setup screen and it won't even let me choose which partition that I want to install on! It just plain doesn't give me that option...doesn't take me to that screen and I can't get there.

Testdisk didn't work for me either. I couldn't find anything that resembled a chance for me to get files back, just some scanning options and stuff.

I swear, so many times I've thought of just getting rid of this thing and buying a pc from a freakin store. Never have I heard of all the problems that I have with this thing.
Sorry I'm complaining so much, but I'm sure you can understand a little bit.

EDIT: Ok, after all that, I did get another XP disk that I have to start the setup process normally. But for some reason, it only shows the D: partition and not any of the others (this is the drive that I have partitioned twice, D:, L:, and M: ). And on the D: drive it shows that all the space is available, so I guess this partition (also the one I had Vista on) is hosed too somehow? To be specific, it says, D: Partition1 (Unknown)

 

[Slikkster]

I feel your pain, man. Now, on the partition(s). Since you disconnected your primary drive, XP should be seeing this drive as C:, not D:, right? So is D: really your partitioned drive? Do you still have that external drive attached? I'd remove that for any reinstall.

Also, keep in mind that you will probably need to install SATA drivers during the first part of the XP install. That may account for the lack of correct info on the partitions.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/15,24.html