Windows won't boot anymore

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thmandan22

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Not really sure where to put this post.

Here is what happened:
I was playing some music in windows xp. Went to load up my favorite FPS game and the computer restarted, was able to load back into windows. It told me It had a 'serious system problem' in the windows kernal. So I tried it agian, the same game*. It restarted agian. This time It would load into windows, It got to the GRUB boat loader (I dual boot linux and WinXP) started loading XP to the point where I saw the XP logo and then the little progress bar underneath. This didnt last long, It restarted agian... So, I tried to load up Fedora Core 3. It would go either, It wanted to do an 'integrity check' and it scanned the root files, and it just left me there hanging. I was able to sucsesfully install ubuntu on some free space (writing this messege on it.) So, I was wondering whats going on? Is the first 2 partitions messed up? partition 1 is WinXP NTFS aka hda1, partition 2 is Fedora Core 3 ext3 aka hda2, a swap partition hda3, and now a ubuntu partition which is currently working. I have no Idea on this one, I figure they must not be completly lost. Any help apreciated, sorry on the thread placement, I have no real clue as to where to place it but since it happened in windows....
Thanks,
Dan

*Note: The computer restarted in the same place of that the game was loading both times.
 
The restarting was probably an OS system problem. The not booting into Windows is probably still just an XP OS problem (unrelated to your partition layout).

That is, if the system turns on and GRUB gives you the option to boot to XP just like always, but from there it's trashed, it's just an XP issue.

If even the bootloader is messed up, then you've got MBR issues.

First thing I do whenever XP doesn't load or go into Windows or restarts itself, is go into Recovery Console and scan the drive with CHKDSK, using both the repair options (usually /R /P).
 
Note: I included some pictures I snapped with my camera to better illustrte some things. They should be coming in the posts following. Thanks, Dan
Ok,
I re-installed xp on the HD a seperate partition. Interestingly it showed the original one, empty exept for a 'recycler' folder and a few other files. I was able to write and read files on it. After I went through the pain of re-installing everything it worked for about day. I restarted it and it went extremly slow and told me that It couldnt find my profile. Under a Temp user I saw that my files where still there. NExt restart, in an effort to fix this slowness It said it couldnt find some system32/system file that was required to start and to repair it by putting in the xp cd and 'repairing' it. Only problem was that it couldnt recongnize any xp partitions and so it wouldnt let me.. So I decided to wipe everything off the drive and start new. I was looking to install windows on one 55gb partition, And some Linux distro on another 55gb partition. So I strted to do a (non-quick) formatt to install XP on. Not sure if it got done or not becuase I went out side to weed-eat but when i got back It said (refering to pic 1) "setup was un-able to format this partition, the disk may be damaged" So, Is the Hard Drive bad? Should I toss it? Or is it fixable by other means? Is It normall to have it work for a few days then "lose" the info. I tried fixing it by means in this thread( -click here- and I was stopped with this (look at pic 2 and for the 2nd crash picture 3) What should I do? Buy a new HD and start over, assuming the HD is the problem. Or completely wipe the drive clean .. agian only to have it destroy my information a day or two later"
Thanks agian for your help.
 
picture1:
messege1.JPG

Link to pic
 
Sorry for the size of images, not sure how to scale it. The link below may help to show a scaled pic in your browser. No pic 3, Just that it didnt recognize any windows partitions and wanted tp install new insted of repair old.
Thanks for all the help.
Dan :eek:
 
If you are trying to load XP fresh, and you're trying to load a fresh Linux. Then I would blow the whole drive away, wipe all the partitions and create new ones.

Just formatting without partitioning doesn't mean MBR issues will be fixed.

You could empty the whole drive and create a new partition however big you want your XP to be. Then leave the rest unpartitioned.
Load XP onto the partition.
Then later, install Linux, it will use the empty space for itself.

I may be wrong on the order of OS. But I think you want to load XP first, this way the Linux boot loader can take over. But if you load Linux first, XP may screw it up.

Good luck
 
Yes, I think I will make it so the entire HD is fresh, Then repartition and stuff. Load xp first, then linux. Grub will take over who boots first.
Thanks,
Dan
 
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