Repairing Windows XP in 8 Commands - Icrontic Guide
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Read Thrax's Guide to Repairing Windows XP in Eight Commands, just published on Icrontic's front page.
Please leave your feedback and thanks for visiting us. Icrontic's content is created by both its staff and members. If you're interested in contributing to the site, please read how you can get published.Allow me to build tension by prefacing the end-all/be-all solution with my background: Having worked for the now-incorporated Geek Squad branch of Best Buy Corporation for the better part of eight months, I have seen dozens upon dozens of systems come through our department with any one of these errors, brought in by customers who are afraid they did something, have a virus, or are in jeopardy of losing their data.
Prior to my discovery of an invaluable sequence of commands, our standard procedure was to hook the afflicted drive to an external enclosure, back up a customer’s data and then restore the PC with the customer’s restore discs or an identical copy of Windows with the customer’s OEM license key. If the customer wasn’t keen on the applicable charges for the data backup, we informed them of the potential risks for a Windows repair installation (Let’s face it, they don’t always work right), had them sign a waiver, and we did our best.
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This will help a lot of people. I know I've been in that sort of situation before.
attrib -r -s -h boot.ini
dang! you beat me to it
anyways i'd suggest renaming the old boot.ini rather than deleting it outright
One of the most-viewed ongoing threads in our Emergency Help forum is filled with people who will wish that a right-to-the-point article like this had been around when their problem first appeared. In the future, countless more will be back in business in no time thanks to your guide.
It doesn't work. I had to modify the article at the last minute to separate the commands. The Windows Recovery Console says that it's an invalid command.
Ah cool. I just tested in the cmd console and assumed it worked in the recovery console.
From my Google searches, it appears that only 64-bit AMD CPUs have the NX buffer overflow protection. Is that true? It'd be helpful to have a list of CPUs or something in the article so that we know whether or not we need to worry about that load option.
Your assumption, to the best of my knowledge, is correct. The NX buffer overflow protection was implemented only in 64 bit CPUs from AMD. I don't know about Intel, mostly cause I never cared to ,know, but if you have a 64 bit AMD CPU you have NX buff overflow protection.
Does anyone know about getting around/through the Administrator Password prompt?
In my experience, on some OEM installed versions of XP, the password is set and the end-user does not know it, thus throwing a frustrating roadblock in the path. Though withholding this powerful information is **obviously** for my own protection... I'm willing to risk it.
(No spaces between the switches works fine).
But I think it would be better to in case you need it again. You don't have to change the attributes before renaming.
Also, the chkdsk program in the recovery console does not have a /F parameter, so you only need to specify /R on the command line.
Wow, I'd say so! I say article writers should get a bonus if we get slashdotted
I tried safety mode... nothing I tried all eight of these commands listed and not even one will work. The first command gives a response that is unable to open file. I ran a check disk and it still says 0% completed after 20 minutes. Now I the only thing I get when I reboot is unable to find disk error. Can anyone give me some advise or direction as to how to fix this problem????
I installed the recovery console as a start-up option on the hard drive. When I try to access it, it searches for hardware set-up with a progress line across the bottom of the screen and then locks up.
Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thank you.
You probably have a dead hard drive, and my guide can not hope to fix your problem. Try downloading the diagnostic tools your manufacturer has designed for your hard drive from their website, and running them if the computer even sees the drive at all.
Same for you also. Sounds like your hard drive or memory has one foot in the grave; the scope of this document is limited to the correction of software-related malfunctions. Try downloading and running the disk utility made by your hard drive manufacturer, as well as running Memtest on a CD downloaded and burned as an image file from www.memtest86.com
Hoping you have another suggestion.
Thanks.
I noticed however that the process involves entering the administrator password. If the password is no longer available (quite often the case), is there a way around it and still use your suggested technique?
Keep up the great work
Because your pre-existing Windows XP Home installation was not damage in the manner the guide describes. You, therefore, fixed what did not need fixing (In the way my guide suggests) and added a second entry of the same operating system.
To correct the issue:
Boot from the NEW Windows XP Home entry.
Right click on My Computer
Hit properties
Go to the advanced tab
Hit "Settings" under "Startup and Recovery"
Hit "Edit"
Remove the entry for the old Windows XP Home. Leave the entry that you added as a result of my guide. Then uncheck "Time to display list of operating systems."
Done.
This website is helpful for that.
Here's MS's walkthrough on how to fix it. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330184
Windows XP longghorn
Windows XP Home
Windows Vista Ultimate
Anything else someone can tell me? I tried most everything, the 8 step and now im booting to linux INSERT to do that one step repairing. But dont know if that will work, i want to find a way to delete all windows but the right one so there is no confusion with these programs.
Also now it dont boot at all to HD's it says NTLDR whatever not found.