Hi guys and gals,

I didn't see a specific area for computers, so I thought I would post it in here. Moderators: If its in the wrong place, please feel free to move it.

Just so you know: Compaq 2100us. AMD 2500+ mobile. Windows XP. I gig of RAM.

I deleted a bunch of old software off the laptop that I no longer use (add and remove programs). That all went fine. I then did a disk cleanup. Again, just fine as always. I then ran the disk compression routine. That seemed to be working fine as well.

I left the room for a few minutes. When I came back the laptop was just showing the "compaq" page that it shows before windows starts.

I finally got it to go through something else by shutting it down and restarting. Now it says that windows will not start because of the following file is missing. \windows\system32\config\system

It then says that I can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the original CD-ROM Select "r" at the first screen to start repair.

I put the setup CD in and I just ran the repair console. It acted like it worked fine and told me to restart. It still won't start up.

Anyone have any other suggestions? I think I am screwed royally. Even If I re-install windows (and get it to work) will I lose all my programs and files.

I also have the original recovery CDs (4 of them). Will that also re-format my hard drive if I run them?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions,
Brian
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One thing you can try is installing windown to another folder. Depends on how bad the damage is.

I suspect what happened is while it was chugging away, cleaning up the hard drive, it probably overheated and crashed while it was moving a critical file or folder and now it is hooped.

If installing to another folder works, all your programs will have to be reinstalled to get them into the registry, but at least some, maybe all, maybe none of your files may still be accessible.

In the XP setup screen, where it shows the drives and partitions, select the drive/partition where windows was installed, and hopefully, it doesn't say something like "unallocated partition" and just select the "install to this partition" option. If it says 'unallocated space' then your only option will be to format and loos all your data.

Other options, use your 3 XP recovery floppy's to get into the XP command prompt and see if you cna navigate around your drives and copy your data to another drive using the console. I think the XP cd will get you into the command prompt, you'll have to look closely while it's booting for getting into the console.

Yes, your recovery cd's will completely wipe all existing data from your disks.

 

I think its beyond help. There is only one major Partition and one very small unpartitioned space. Windows will not fit there.

When I go in to re-install windows, it says the major partition is either full, damaged, not formatted, or formatted with an incompatible version. Basically it wants me to re-format the hard drive.

The laptop has no floppy drive..therefore no 3 floppies either.

The only command prompt I see is after the CD tries to repair it. I get the DOS C:> prompt. Is that what your talking about?


It looks like I just lost everything when it did whatever it did.

 

Before doing any repairs you need to make sure that the CD you use is the same version as what was installed. The cd you have may be SP1 and the PC is SP2... If that is the case then a repair using the original cd will not work. You need a SP2 CD.. If you don't have access to a SP2 disk then the best bet is use the Recovery cd's.

Using the recovery CD's will format the hard drive and you will loose all data..

The only way to recovery data off of the hard drive is to take the drive out and install it in another pc. This will allow you to read the drive with that pc's version of windows..

I see it is a Laptop so you will need a 2.5" hard drive enclosure to do this.

If you know they are the same then I would use the original XP cd to boot to the recovery console.. Then run CHKDSK to verify the disk is good.

Then reboot the CD and go to the 2nd repair option. This will repair the windows directory and should be fine without having to reinstall programs.


You can PM me if you need more info..

 

Have a look at this on another computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

watch for this from that page:

SUMMARY
This article describes how to recover a Windows XP system that does not start because of corruption in the registry. This procedure does not guarantee full recovery of the system to a previous state; however, you should be able to recover data when you use this procedure.

Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives.

You can repair a corrupted registry in Windows XP. Corrupted registry files can cause a variety of different error messages. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base for articles about error messages that are related to registry issues.

This article assumes that typical recovery methods have failed and access to the system is not available except by using Recovery Console. If an Automatic System Recovery (ASR) backup exists, it is the preferred method for recovery. Microsoft recommends that you use the ASR backup before you try the procedure described in this article.

Note Make sure to replace all five of the registry hives. If you only replace a single hive or two, this can cause potential issues because software and hardware may have settings in multiple locations in the registry.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318159/

 

My son's HP laptop did something similar to this.

My solution. . .

I ordered another hdd from Drive Solutions dot com and a 'transfer' kit.
The kit houses the new hdd until you either 'clone' the internal hdd, or 'archive' the data from the original.

The CD that is included in the kit is what the pc/laptop boots to.

In any event, I 'cloned' the hdd. Once cloned, I reformatted the original hdd, then reinstalled windows and programs, then using the 'new' hdd, moved his data back to the original hdd.

The 60 gig hdd was about $68, and the 'kit' was another $50, or so.

The 'kit' plugs into a USB port. It's 2.0 and 1.1 compatible.

Thanks for reading. . .

 

Compusa sells hard drive enclosures for $25.00 and connect via USB.

Just put the Hard Drive into the enclosure and connect to another PC. Should be able to read the old data in explorer..

This makes your drive an external Hard Drive on the other PC.

I have enclosures for 2.5" and 3.5" drives and use them frequently when working on client PC's..

 

Try this...

Reboot your computer. After the computer start up screen comes up and BEFORE windows starts to load, hit F8.

This will bring up the windows boot menu. Select the option that allows you to start with the last know good configuration.

But, if the system file is lost, you may be screwed. You can also try to start in safe mode, via the same menu, and try to do a system restore from with in windows.

You can also select command prompt only and run chkdsk /r the will run check disk and try to move any information that's in a bad sector.

good luck.

 

I don't know if you can get to this or not, but try starting it in safe mode. Then you can put in like a jump drive and put your important files on it. I'm not real sure what your problem is, if you can get to the option for safe mode at all, but it's worth a shot.

 

He should also be able to copy the file on to a Floppy disc from another computer or even using the command prompt with the windows disc and looking in the directory for the file ...once his is in safe mode copy the file to the hard drive.

 

And the moral of the story is to NEVER use a disk compression utility for this exact reason.

Like everyone is telling you, you will need to re-format and re-install. If you want to swap hard drives, that's probably the best way to save your data.

 

+1 on the disk compression!!


The drive solutions hdd and enclosure 'kit' was a painless way to salvage everything on my son's laptop.
After cloning the hdd and re-installing the OS, copying the files back to the original hdd was painless.

His HP runs like a new one, now.

Thanks for reading.

Keith