Computer Crapped out completely.

[member1]

Well hello all,

My computer has officially crapped out. That spyware issue trojan downloader ripped it to shreads. I became tired of trying to remove all the little pieces of fun it hid within the system so I decided to reformat. Upon reformatting I found out that I can no longer boot the machine unless I have the windows XP CD in the cd-rom drive. Any ideas?

Once and if we can fix that issue ... this is where I currently stand.

zero windows updates installed. I had zone alarm pro setup file on my external hard drive so that was installed before this computer even touched the internet.

and GAIM (aim alternative). That is all that is installed on this machine.

Reason being is that I do not want to go through the hassle of all the updates and installation unless I can get this thing to boot without the cd-rom.

Any ideas to help me fix this issue?

 

[Centurio]

Sounds like something that has been plagueing me until some weeks ago.

It turned out the culprit was an out-of-spec (or defective) IDE cable even though my machine had worked flawlessly before I added another HD. Prob is fixed now. Check/replace your IDE cable.

Regards, Martin A

 

[seeker1]

When you boot without the disk, do you get any error messages? Have you tried running chkdsk /f?

 

[member1]

a simple "Please insert a bootable disk and press any key"

any ideas ?

 

[seeker1]

I'm not totally certain, but I would try using the recovery console. I don't remember all of the steps, but if you let it boot from the disk, and tell it to repair the installation, you should get to the recovery console. There is also an auto recovery function, but unless you have prepared for it, it is of no use.

 

[member1]

okay i will give that a try right now. I have never been successful while trying to recover off of the XP cd.

 

[member1]

any ideas?

 

[seeker1]

You aren't providing enough information for anyone to give you an exact answer, if such an answer exists. Here is a list of items that I can only assume that you have done:

Run chkdsk -f

Run sfc /scannow

Run the recovery console

Between the three of these, one should repair the problem. Again, I can only assume that you ran the last item, but it is the most likely fix. The console has a number of options, which have you tried?

 

[Kersman]

I would try running the recovery console off of the XP CD. After it boots and loads the files, press R to access the console. You'll be taken into a DOS based section that has very useful tools in it. Try running chkdsk c: /r where C: is your primary harddrive. The /r command will tell the console to repair any problems it finds during the scan. If it gets to around 70% in the scan then drops back down to 50%, don't worry...it's normal. Afterwards, try running fixboot and maybe even fixmbr...though these might be the last option. But, if you're not able to boot, then there could be a corrupt boot sector, or even your master boot record (mbr) could be having problems. Those two commands should solve that.

 

[member1]

okay!

sorry for the very very delayed replies. My free time is slim to none. Working 14 hour days. I am going to shut down now and try and get this thing fixed once and for all!

 

[member1]

sorry I did not reply to this earlier seeker. I ran the chkdsk /r that kersman suggested and that did not work.

the /f switch did not work. it was not available.

running the sfc /scannow option now. hopefully this will work!

thanks for all the help seeker & kersman.

update...

sfc /scanow did not work either.

 

[member1]

fixed

note.

i also tried the fixmbr command via repair but that did not work either...

the partitions were fresh and nothing of importance was on them so I just opted to delete the partitions and format them both all over again before I went to bed lastnight.

now all is well and I have installed zone alarm pro. and am currently getting all of my windows updates now that I have installed both SP1 and SP2.

thank you for trying.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Next time, all you need is SP2, this includes SP1.
Burn yourself a new XP-CD with SP2 slipstreamed into it:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm

Saves a lot of time, and repairs don't need reinstall of SP2!

 

[member1]

that looks very nice. I will have to look into that. My copy of XP was provided to me by my school. It does not have sp1 integrated into it though. I'll have to check and see if both can be slipstreamed onto a cd-r.

 

[IronDuke]

XP2 contains all that XP1 does. As RBS said only XP2 is required.

 

[member1]

doh! okay then.