XP Pro no boot

futures_shark · Dec 3, 2006

I'm trying to recover from a boot error. The pc starts up and gives me the choice of safe mode, last known good, or normal. irregardless of what I choose it enters a loop of rebooting and coming back to this point.

I can see my HD with a linux live-cd and have already copied some info to a backup.

But any ideas how I can get this thing to boot again?

I instaled some sketchy software this morning so I'm leaning towards a possible corrupt registry. I copied previously good registry info from "system volume information" to system32\config but no change.

I ran chkdsk and got the ok, ran fixboot but no change. bootcfg doesn't run claiming file system errors

kiwi_trader · Dec 3, 2006

Try reinstalling Windows over top of itself.

futures_shark · Dec 3, 2006

I've done that before but I will have to re-install all my software if I go that route. I'm trying to figure out how to get this fixed without a complete re-install.

BlueStreek · Dec 3, 2006

your just wasting time..........do total reinstall and partitioning..........trust me.......mine has crashed 5 times in last year.........now....i....will just go straight to complete install mode...........takes bout an hour-----------trying to save will waste about 4 hours------trying every possible thing like repair etc......just get used to being able to lose everything.....now i use ib browser----so no big deal

kiwi_trader · Dec 3, 2006

If you do a windows install on top of itself you shouldn't have to reinstall all of your software. Choose the least destructive option first.

gnome · Dec 3, 2006

You might want to try this...

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

futures_shark · Dec 3, 2006

Quote from gnome:

You might want to try this...

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

I found that article and I'm trying it but I'm not getting teh same screens. I don't think that the install CD is seeing the old installation

brownsfan019 · Dec 3, 2006

shark - same thing happened to me last week. I spent a few hours trying to salvage it and ended up having to reinstall windows. Now, my problem started with a questionnable email, but the end result was the same as yours.

gnome · Dec 4, 2006

Quote from futures_shark:

I found that article and I'm trying it but I'm not getting teh same screens. I don't think that the install CD is seeing the old installation

That's strange. If you're booting from the install CD, it shouldn't see the HD at all.

futures_shark · Dec 4, 2006

Quote from gnome:

That's strange. If you're booting from the install CD, it shouldn't see the HD at all.

I tried slipstreaming sp2 with my original cd (2004) hoping that would fix it but the installation just goes into installing a new copy in a different directory windows.0

No option to repair ever shows up