many xp setup errors - broken HDD?

daven1986

daven1986

daven1986

Soldato
Joined
29 Oct 2005
Posts
3,298
Hi all,

Just trying to repair a windows installation on my girlfriends computer, and while loading all the files it keeps coming up with "this file was copied incorrectly" for many files (over 10), if I retry them most work the second time around - is this usual (haven't ever seen them on my PCs) or should I be looking to run a HDD diagnostic tool soon?

The computer broke with an lssas.exe error and many blue screens, a virus check turned up nothing and so now I am trying the repair!

Thanks

Daven
 
It might be a bad burn of the XP ISO [or a scratched disc] or it could be the HDD hasn't been cleaned up for a while.

Boot into recovery console from the CD [I think it's 'repair' then 'recovery console] then run
Chkdsk /r

That will automagically check for bad sectors, recover any data it can, then fix any filesystem problems.

you will need the Administrator password for the installation volume you want to check, mind.

Try doing a repair after that, then a defrag - if the HDD was a bit wonky beforehand, the repair of Windows should go through lickety-spit, and the system will generally seem to be a bit smoother.

Note that if the machine is riddled with spyware [not just viruses, arf] then it might be an idea to clear them too - use Spybot Search and Destroy [from Safer Networking], and a free AV scanner like Free-av [from www.free-av.com] to check, then do your chkdsk /r

chkdsk /r from teh recovery console has made literally dozens of machines I've worked on actually usable again, even on tightly locked down workstations with no infections of any kind, that had just been unloved, never had a defrag and had probably always had their disk checks skipped by the user...
 
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