Windows XP boot error

AdamEW

AdamEW

AdamEW

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Joined
16 Apr 2006
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402
Location
Lanchester, Near Durham
While installing some theme for my windows xp I started getting all these crazy errors telling me that c:\Windows was corrupted but the program I Was installing came created a system restore point so I decided to restore my pc but on restart i have a message saying disk read error occured press ctrl+alt+delete to restart.. after trying pointlessly to restart it i thought I know I will put my windows disk in and see if I can repair it but uppon putting in my windows disk and booting it my screen just goes black! ..

anyone got any ideas of what I can do?
Thanks Adam
 
thats why i have windows file protection scanning to see if any system files have been altered, its a local policy that when you boot up it asks you to have the xp cd in the drive and scan the pc.
 
AdamEW said:
While installing some theme for my windows xp I started getting all these crazy errors telling me that c:\Windows was corrupted but the program I Was installing came created a system restore point so I decided to restore my pc but on restart i have a message saying disk read error occured press ctrl+alt+delete to restart.. after trying pointlessly to restart it i thought I know I will put my windows disk in and see if I can repair it but uppon putting in my windows disk and booting it my screen just goes black! ..

anyone got any ideas of what I can do?
Thanks Adam
Click to expand...
look at your hdd it might not be connected or you bios just couldnt find it
- Have you tried a different IDE cable?
If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again!

2 - You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!!

3 - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!!

4 - or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!!

have a look here google is your friend :rolleyes:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/19004/?o=220
 
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well Im very confused as to why my XP disk wont boot up I cant see how the hard drive could effect this.
 
sorry about that I guess I dont refresh my pages enough,

I have checked to see if it is connected properly and it seems it is as the bios is detecting it fine,

I read some of that post with the guy updating his bios but I doubt this will be the problem as it only occured after installing the theme package..

I posted on the steam forums , theres more info there

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=459098

(am I allowed to post that)

thanks

Adam

EDIT: my hdd is a western digital any ideas how i can completely format it ?.. this will be a right bummer as I have quite a few important files on my pc but if its the only way Im sure I can survive with a fresh install
 
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AdamEW said:
{snip}EDIT: my hdd is a western digital any ideas how i can completely format it ?.. this will be a right bummer as I have quite a few important files on my pc but if its the only way Im sure I can survive with a fresh install
Click to expand...
  • Using a program like Acronis Disk Director Suite or PartitionMagic, create a partition thats slightly bigger than Used space (My Computer > Right-Click on drive > Properties);
  • Then backup old partition onto new using a program like Acronis True Image (free trial here) or Norton Ghost;
  • Format & reinstall Windows on old partition;
  • Load/mount (part of program features) backup image & start recovering documents, e-mails, bookmarks, etc. Only thing you can not recover from this is Programs, drivers, updates & settings in registry.
Also, there should be some free programs that can allow you to do above, Google them :D

Oh, & this kind of post belongs here :)
 
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thanks for the advise guys but in the end I just cleared the hard drive and installed linux which I will later delete with windows

yeah I wasnt sure wether to post it in the windows section or the hard disk section so i just went for general
 
Ok :)

But just partition your disk to avoid earlier problem, e.g...

mypartitions0ce.jpg


  • XP's installed on MAIN;
  • My Documents & Games are on STUFF_1;
  • Then C: & D: are backed up (Acronis True Image) on BACKUP partition on separate HD
 
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