Windows loads to Black Screen with mouse

[Capo64]

Hi everyone,

Ok this is what happened.

I connected an old hard drive to a computer of mine that already had windows installed on it.

I wanted to install Windows on the old hard drive so I booted from the Windows CD.

That CD gave me a message that said one of your Windows installations is damaged, press R to repair (or something like that) -- This was the Windows that was already installed on the computer.

So I figured why not and I pressed R. It went into recovery mode and did everything then it rebooted to the setup screen (from the hard drive). Right when I was about to click next, I flipped off the power strip with my foot by accident (bad news).

Everything shut off, and now I have a black screen with an active mouse cursor.

I saw other people have had these issues.

I can still boot from Windows CD, and it still tells me the Windows installation is damaged, and when I press R it goes through the process off the CD and then reboots to the black screen.

When I try safemode, it boots to a black screen, but I can see the white writing on the top and four corners of the screen that says like "Windows XP Pro Safemode" or whatever.

I went into the Windows recovery console and I can see all the files are still on the HD so I didn't lose any data.

I tried last known good configuration, no go.

I really would rather not reformat being that I have so much data in different locations that it would be very frustrating to back up.

Edit:

I tried disable mup (nothing changes except my mouse stops working at the black screen)

I can do fixmbr, and it tells me I have an irregular master boot record or something, and I hit y anyway and it doesn't do anything. (next time I try fixmbr it still says the same thing).

I tried chkdsk /R , and it said it found and fixed an error, but I don't think it did.

I tried running the WD repair HD thing and it did a full scan and said there are no errors.

 

[raybay]

Try booting to try the Repair mode once more.
But you are going to have the best operation by doing a new install.
New hard drives are pretty cheap... $40 for a $40 GB... and $60 for an 80 GB... so you might benefit from intalling to a new drive. Once it is working well, rescue your data from the old drive by jumpering the new drive as Master and the old drive as slave then use drag and drop, or a recovery software to save your valuable data.
There are lots of ways to deal with this. They just take too long to explain.
You might ask around to see which one of your tech friends might be willing to help you for a six pack of beverage.

 

[Capo64]

lol@six pack.


I have plenty of HDs, but I really would rather not reformat because it would take so much time to transfer all the data and reinstall everything to the new installation.

Is there ANY other way?

 

[raybay]

There is no quick fix. You have to repair that Windows Install. I don't know any free software that will do it, but a good tech should be able to get it working..
The problem is getting it to boot up to fix it properly.
A full version of Windows XP, not an OEM, would help, but that is $400.
Anything other than a Repair install will wipe out your data.
In the long run, the fastest way is a new hard drive, then rescue all your data.
But slow and patient might work... There are lots of rescue software packages out there. You might be able to find what you need from an expert who uses one of those packages.

 

[Capo64]

I'm gonna try everything I can before I reformat or go to anyone.

I think I found my problem. When I do "map" in the recovery console, I see:

C:\ \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
then the other ones.

Shouldn't that be in Partition0 rather than Partition1? The harddrive i'm using only has 1 partition with all of the data.

and when I do a fixmbr, it says it's fixing it for \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 , so that's why it's not affecting my windows installation at all.

Is it possible to just switch the whole ordeal over to partition0?


Edit:

Uh oh, I think I just deleted all the data on the hard drive. Windows CD can't read any files.
All I did was fixmbr \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1

Then I tried to boot and it said invalid partition table.

Then I booted from Partitionmagic and there were 2 partitions there, one with 0kb used and one with all my data on it. Deleted the empty one.

Now Windows CD can't read any of the data and I still get bad partition table.

Anyone know anything about data recovery

This is a wreck

 

[damusca]

Does your partition have a drive letter assigned to it, if not assign one and it should recognise and read your data on the drive, if not look through your partition manager files, that should be able to restore it to your previous state where you see both.

 

[Capo64]

Well in partition magic it's now saying: partition size: 200,000 free space: 200,000.

Does that mean my data's gone for sure or is there something that can recover it?

 

[damusca]

file recovery

Download a free file recovery programme which will work a treat and find the files you are looking for as long as they have not been over written, even if you have deleted them by accident they will still get them back.

The one you want is piriform limited w w w dot, wont let me put it in html

There are three applications, all good, one is ccleaner, one is degraggle ( brilliant ) and the other which will sort it out for you is called recuva.

Best of luck

David

 

[damusca]

Sorry, just one last thing, when you did the fixmbr you did it on a different partition to the one which contained your files or were they linked. If they were linked it may have wiped your whole drive, hope not :s