I cant belive this...I really cant believe it....it worked!!!
Please allow me to explain, because I still need help with the next part.
Drasnor...as you know, you had mentioned the correct adapter to install however the problem I was having was that when I loaded the floppy, it only showed a list of 4 to choose from.
I then emailed tech support for intel and tried to get help. I told the tech the problem and each time he said that the adapter is there and I must be doing something wrong, they said they even downloaded the file and installed it and it was in fact there...I told them, that I must be doing it right because if it was wrong, then I would not be able to see ANY adapters on the list. The tech still replied that I must be doing something wrong, thats its me. I said once again, look I can see only 4 and thats it so it must have worked. I asked to have this forwarded to a supervisor. The next email finally fix the problem...he said that maybe the reason you cant see the correct adapter is because of the monitor resolution and that I should press the down arrow to scroll thru the list of adapters...WTF!!!
You think maybe this would have been the first thing he would mention...or better yet, you think maybe the windows screen that says highlight the adapter, might say to 'use the down arrow' to scroll thru the 20 something adapters!
So....the problem that I was having was after putting in the XP pro cd and either pressing enter or 'R', the next screen would say that there is no HD installed. And that is as far as I would get...until now.
This is where I need help. I put in the xp pro cd and just to check to see if it works, I pressed 'R' and it works. It says 'Recovery console provides system repair and recovery functionality' and 'Which windows installation would you like to log onto' and a list to choose:
1. C:\MiniNT
2. D:\Windows
My question...which one should I choose OR should I maybe have pressed 'enter' instead of pressing 'R' when I put in the XP Pro cd?
You want to go to the NEXT screen where it gives you the chance to press "R" to perform a repair installation. After it scans for existing copies of Windows.
The main goal here is to be able to not lose my programs and etc.
So....after putting in the XP cd...should I choose the 1st option 'Enter' or the 2nd 'Press R'...if you all say to press 'R' then which one to I choose 1.MiniNT or 2.Windows?
And is there anything else I should know to do after pressing 'R'?
You want to go to the NEXT screen where it gives you the chance to press "R" to perform a repair installation. After it scans for existing copies of Windows.
Don't do this yet. We're running CHKDSK first. If that doesn't work, we'll try a repair install.
Use D:\WINDOWS. C:\MiniNT is your recovery partition.
How should I do the chkdsk? And what should I do after running it? And thanks again so much for sticking around and trying to help. I cant believe it worked and I hope I still might be able to get the whole thing working.
When the CD finishes loading, type 'R' to Repair Windows XP using the Recovery Console. It will ask you if you really want to do this, which you do. Select D:\WINDOWS as the installation you wish to repair. Give your Administrator password if you set one, otherwise just hit enter.
Type CHKDSK /P D: and hit enter. Get some coffee or pizza because this is going to take awhile. If it finds any errors (which it will), run it again until it doesn't. Then reboot.
If your Windows install still isn't working we'll try a repair install.
Ok...will do it right now. You and the other helpful people here have done an amazing job in helping me thus far and I truly....truly want to thank you.
ok....I ran the chkdsk with the comman you said. The first run finished fast. It said it found one or more errors. Then I ran it again and it didnt say anything. I typed exit, reboot without the xp cd in. The screen loaded with the gateway logo and gave two options..one was to press F2 for bios and F10 for boot menu...then the next screen loaded, was black and all I can see is a blinking cursor in the top left corner.
If I press any key nothing happens, if I press F8 enough times, the laptop starts to beep each time I hit any key.
And this is as far as I can get. Please let me know what I should do next. You have been great in explaining in simple terms what to do, so please dont forget when you explain what I should do next...I'm still learning
Ok, it seems like your bootloader might have gotten wiped. Get back to the Recovery Console on your Windows drive like you were going to run CHKDSK and run FIXMBR followed by FIXBOOT. Reboot and try to load Windows again.
Before running...it asked me if I was sure because it could cause all partitions to become inaccessible.
It then said are you sure you want to write a new MBR? I type 'Y'
It then said...Writing new master boot record on physical drive
\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0.
The new master boot record has been successfully written.
After that I typed 'FIXBOOT'
It said:
The target partition is C:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C:?
I type 'Y'...it then said
The file system on the startup partition is FAT32
FIXBOOT is writing a new boot sector.
The new bootsector was successfully written.
I typed exit and the laptop rebooted. I took out the XP cd.
The laptop reloaded, the gateway logo showed, after that the next screen went black for a few seconds...and this time it did something different. The next screen gave an error of:
INF file minint\boot is corrupt or missing, status 51262.
Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.
And thats it...will not let me go any further.
Please let me know what I should do next. I feel like we are getting so close. I appreciate everything you have done thus far.
Unless I'm doing something wrong...it will not allow me to do a target partition to the D:
This is what happens:
After putting in the XP cd and pressing 'R'...it gives a list,
1: C:\MiniNT
2: D:\Windows
Which windows installation would you like to log onto
(To cancel, press ENTER)?
I entered the number 2 and it gave me the following command prompt:
D:\WINDOWS>
So I typed the 'FIXBOOT'
After typing that it said...
The target partition is C:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C:?
There was no way to change it to D:....so I typed 'N' and enter...it then went back to the command prompt of:
D:\WINDOWS>
I dont know how to get it to do what you are asking. Am I typing the wrong thing?
I'm sure your time must be limited, so if your busy please to feel that you have to answer real fast. I would rather you take the time. As long as you dont mind telling me what to try next, I dont care how long it takes. It worth it to me, if you can find a way to fix this freaking thing
ok....I typed fixboot D: and that worked. It said the following...
The target partition is D:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition D:? Yes
The file system on the startup partition is NTFS.
fixboot is writing a new boot sector.
The new bootsector was successfully written.
********************
BUT....after typing exit at the command prompt and the laptop restarted, I got the same error as last time...
INF file minint\boot is corrupt or missing, status 51262.
Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.
********************
I just want to be sure, but after typing the fixboot does it matter how I shut down and restart? Meaning, the way I type exit at the command prompt and then it restarts automatically...would this cause it to not save itself correctly?
Your machine is attempting to boot the wrong partition. You may as well just do a repair install like Thrax mentioned at this point because I only have bad guesses for how to solve this.
I first want to say again, thanks for taking out the time and making an effort to help figure this out. I really appreciate all the ideas and suggestions on what to try.
Drasnor...it was some of your ideas that got me this far. So any ideas you may have, might be better then nothing at all. If there is anything else you may think...please share them. If it would make things easier to do this thru AIM...let me know...whatever you decide is fine.
As far as doing the repair...I have a question. After putting in the XP cd and pressing 'R' for repair...the next screen listed two choices.
1: C:\MiniNT
2: D:\Windows
I entered the number '2' and then presses enter....all it did was go to a new line and show the command prompt of...
D:\WINDOWS>
And thats it, nothing else happened. Do I need to type a certain command to do the repair? And which number should I choose to repair, 1 or 2?
at some point after doing some of the things mentioned, I was able to get further, but was stopped by a error that said \system32\config was missing or corrupt.
I searched online for help and found somwhere where is said to do a copy from the repair back to the windows system folder...which I did and it worked...however,
Now the problem is this...
When I start the laptop without the XP cd...a black screen loads that says:
Please select the operting system to start:
windows XP professional
Windows Professional
Windows XP Professional
No matter which one I choose, it doesnt work. What happens is that after I select the one I want, the next screen that loads is blue and shows a bunch of info but it does not stay long enough for me to read it...then it just restarts the laptop all over again.
The reason why there it shows 3 operating systems to choose from is because when I was trying to fix it, I created two extra by mistake after doing the bootcfg /rebuild.
Please let me know what you think I should do now.
John
PS:I also am able to get to the menu after pressing F8...I tried to do safe mode and safe mode with command prompt and last know....but none work.
Now the probelm I had of the blue screen flashing once and then restarting windows does not happen anymore...the current problem is this:
The back screen would load, that asks me to choose the operating system, after selecting the one I want, the windows screen with the status bar loaded which I have not been able to see in a long time, then it would disappear and the normal blue windows screen would load with the small microsoft windows logo in the center...and thats it. Sometimes it restarts on it own and sometimes it just freezes.
I also tried to do safe mode and it almost worked...the screen loaded, it showed the words safe mode in each corner of the screen but then it would change screen to the normal blue windows screen I mentioned above.
Again sorry to post so soon, I just thought this new info might help.
Ok...I might have some good news but first want to clear somthing. I know some forums can be bothered by posts that keep going and going and if this is the case with this forum, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to waste anyones time, I just thought maybe some of the info of what I come across might be helpful to someone else. However, if the people here who control this forum, want me to let this post die out, then your the boss and what you say goes.
That said...between the great help from Thrax and drasnor, I have been able to get my laptop almost fixed. First I was not able to choose the repair option but after some fixing from above people...I was able to press enter to install XP and then select repair...which worked but everytime I ran it, it would stop at certain files and say that it cannot copy them over. Each time I tried to repair, it would stop at the same files, ufat.dll, tourW.exe,tcpip.sys and a few others. The only way to contiue with the install was to hit esc and cancel the copying of those files. I had hoped that it would still fix XP...which it didnt.
I mentioned this to drasnor and he said the problems of those files not being able to copy over could be a scratch cd, dirty cd drive, etc. The XP install cd was a copied version I made as backup and it didnt look bad...but I looked around for the real XP cd and found it.
I put in the cd and it made it through the whole process without stopping once which was great. Then the screen flashed and changed to the installing windows where it explains the whole new look and features it comes with. Now up to this point I never....ever got this far. It made it through the 'Preparing installation' and right now I think it might be stuck on 'Installing windows'. It says it takes about 39 min to complete.
The reason I said stuck is because...a small windows popped up saying 'FatalError' An error has been encountered that prevents Setup from continuing Press OK to view the setup log file.
I didnt press ok yet because in the bottom right hand corner there is a status bar that keep moving showing that the install is still going. So I hope that even thu the fatalerror window is open, I'm going to see if it finishes.
Ok...I waited a while and I dont think it was going to finish, so I clicked on 'OK' and a System Setup Log window opened up with the following info:
The signature for Windows XP Professional Upgrade is invalid. The error code is fffffb40.
The system cannot find message text for message number 0xfffffb40 in the message file for syssetup.dll
Fatl Error - Setup failed to install the product catalogs. This is a fatal error.
***************
Any ideas on why this happend or what I could try next.
Ok...I'm sorry to re-open this post and after this will no longer post again. I just wanted to let some of you know that I managed to get my laptop working and most of my files and even some programs are still there...Yeah I know I cant believe it myself
Before I explain the what I did, I want to again express my biggest thanks to everyone here who bothered to reach out and help me. I know its very easy to just give up and just tell me to reformat but instead you guys tried to do different things in hope to maybe recover...so thanks goes out to you all...THNKS!!!
I'm not sure why it works but it does and will see what happens next. After trying for a long time to repair and etc, I gave in and did an install. When I selected the partition with windows already installed, it asked if I was sure...I figured to let it do it anyways, figuring I have lost all data...so I installed xp pro on the same partition with the old one and after restarting the laptop, it works fine....so far. All my programs are gone from the desktop but when I goto explorer and look in the programs folder they are all there. Some are missing files or need to be re-registered again, but some are still fine. All my pictures are there and all files.
I just have one question about things that I should do after installing XP. Meaning are there certain things I need to download to keep it safe...should I download ALL updates from microsoft? Are there certain updates I should NOT download? The Xp Pro cd I have is version 2002 service pack 2.
Grab SP3, and every other update.
Turn on System restore.
Get Norton Ghost, install the recovery partition, and make a boot CD, have Ghost make an OS backup every 30 days.
There. 100% error proof restoration. The only thing that could possibly screw THIS up is the drive dying.
Comments
Please allow me to explain, because I still need help with the next part.
Drasnor...as you know, you had mentioned the correct adapter to install however the problem I was having was that when I loaded the floppy, it only showed a list of 4 to choose from.
I then emailed tech support for intel and tried to get help. I told the tech the problem and each time he said that the adapter is there and I must be doing something wrong, they said they even downloaded the file and installed it and it was in fact there...I told them, that I must be doing it right because if it was wrong, then I would not be able to see ANY adapters on the list. The tech still replied that I must be doing something wrong, thats its me. I said once again, look I can see only 4 and thats it so it must have worked. I asked to have this forwarded to a supervisor. The next email finally fix the problem...he said that maybe the reason you cant see the correct adapter is because of the monitor resolution and that I should press the down arrow to scroll thru the list of adapters...WTF!!!
You think maybe this would have been the first thing he would mention...or better yet, you think maybe the windows screen that says highlight the adapter, might say to 'use the down arrow' to scroll thru the 20 something adapters!
So....the problem that I was having was after putting in the XP pro cd and either pressing enter or 'R', the next screen would say that there is no HD installed. And that is as far as I would get...until now.
This is where I need help. I put in the xp pro cd and just to check to see if it works, I pressed 'R' and it works. It says 'Recovery console provides system repair and recovery functionality' and 'Which windows installation would you like to log onto' and a list to choose:
1. C:\MiniNT
2. D:\Windows
My question...which one should I choose OR should I maybe have pressed 'enter' instead of pressing 'R' when I put in the XP Pro cd?
Thanks again so much for all the help.
John
So....after putting in the XP cd...should I choose the 1st option 'Enter' or the 2nd 'Press R'...if you all say to press 'R' then which one to I choose 1.MiniNT or 2.Windows?
And is there anything else I should know to do after pressing 'R'?
ThNks
John
Use D:\WINDOWS. C:\MiniNT is your recovery partition.
-drasnor
How should I do the chkdsk? And what should I do after running it? And thanks again so much for sticking around and trying to help. I cant believe it worked and I hope I still might be able to get the whole thing working.
Let me know,
John
Type CHKDSK /P D: and hit enter. Get some coffee or pizza because this is going to take awhile. If it finds any errors (which it will), run it again until it doesn't. Then reboot.
If your Windows install still isn't working we'll try a repair install.
-drasnor
Will post when done doing chkdsk.
John
If I press any key nothing happens, if I press F8 enough times, the laptop starts to beep each time I hit any key.
And this is as far as I can get. Please let me know what I should do next. You have been great in explaining in simple terms what to do, so please dont forget when you explain what I should do next...I'm still learning
John
-drasnor
Before running...it asked me if I was sure because it could cause all partitions to become inaccessible.
It then said are you sure you want to write a new MBR? I type 'Y'
It then said...Writing new master boot record on physical drive
\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0.
The new master boot record has been successfully written.
After that I typed 'FIXBOOT'
It said:
The target partition is C:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C:?
I type 'Y'...it then said
The file system on the startup partition is FAT32
FIXBOOT is writing a new boot sector.
The new bootsector was successfully written.
I typed exit and the laptop rebooted. I took out the XP cd.
The laptop reloaded, the gateway logo showed, after that the next screen went black for a few seconds...and this time it did something different. The next screen gave an error of:
INF file minint\boot is corrupt or missing, status 51262.
Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.
And thats it...will not let me go any further.
Please let me know what I should do next. I feel like we are getting so close. I appreciate everything you have done thus far.
John
-drasnor
This is what happens:
After putting in the XP cd and pressing 'R'...it gives a list,
1: C:\MiniNT
2: D:\Windows
Which windows installation would you like to log onto
(To cancel, press ENTER)?
I entered the number 2 and it gave me the following command prompt:
D:\WINDOWS>
So I typed the 'FIXBOOT'
After typing that it said...
The target partition is C:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C:?
There was no way to change it to D:....so I typed 'N' and enter...it then went back to the command prompt of:
D:\WINDOWS>
I dont know how to get it to do what you are asking. Am I typing the wrong thing?
I'm sure your time must be limited, so if your busy please to feel that you have to answer real fast. I would rather you take the time. As long as you dont mind telling me what to try next, I dont care how long it takes. It worth it to me, if you can find a way to fix this freaking thing
John
-drasnor
The target partition is D:.
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition D:? Yes
The file system on the startup partition is NTFS.
fixboot is writing a new boot sector.
The new bootsector was successfully written.
********************
BUT....after typing exit at the command prompt and the laptop restarted, I got the same error as last time...
INF file minint\boot is corrupt or missing, status 51262.
Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.
********************
I just want to be sure, but after typing the fixboot does it matter how I shut down and restart? Meaning, the way I type exit at the command prompt and then it restarts automatically...would this cause it to not save itself correctly?
Please let me know what to try next.
John
Thanks again!
-drasnor
I first want to say again, thanks for taking out the time and making an effort to help figure this out. I really appreciate all the ideas and suggestions on what to try.
Drasnor...it was some of your ideas that got me this far. So any ideas you may have, might be better then nothing at all. If there is anything else you may think...please share them. If it would make things easier to do this thru AIM...let me know...whatever you decide is fine.
As far as doing the repair...I have a question. After putting in the XP cd and pressing 'R' for repair...the next screen listed two choices.
1: C:\MiniNT
2: D:\Windows
I entered the number '2' and then presses enter....all it did was go to a new line and show the command prompt of...
D:\WINDOWS>
And thats it, nothing else happened. Do I need to type a certain command to do the repair? And which number should I choose to repair, 1 or 2?
Thanks everyone for the help,
John
-drasnor
at some point after doing some of the things mentioned, I was able to get further, but was stopped by a error that said \system32\config was missing or corrupt.
I searched online for help and found somwhere where is said to do a copy from the repair back to the windows system folder...which I did and it worked...however,
Now the problem is this...
When I start the laptop without the XP cd...a black screen loads that says:
Please select the operting system to start:
windows XP professional
Windows Professional
Windows XP Professional
No matter which one I choose, it doesnt work. What happens is that after I select the one I want, the next screen that loads is blue and shows a bunch of info but it does not stay long enough for me to read it...then it just restarts the laptop all over again.
The reason why there it shows 3 operating systems to choose from is because when I was trying to fix it, I created two extra by mistake after doing the bootcfg /rebuild.
Please let me know what you think I should do now.
John
PS:I also am able to get to the menu after pressing F8...I tried to do safe mode and safe mode with command prompt and last know....but none work.
The site is http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q307545
And the commands I typed where:
md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak
delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default
copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default
Now the probelm I had of the blue screen flashing once and then restarting windows does not happen anymore...the current problem is this:
The back screen would load, that asks me to choose the operating system, after selecting the one I want, the windows screen with the status bar loaded which I have not been able to see in a long time, then it would disappear and the normal blue windows screen would load with the small microsoft windows logo in the center...and thats it. Sometimes it restarts on it own and sometimes it just freezes.
I also tried to do safe mode and it almost worked...the screen loaded, it showed the words safe mode in each corner of the screen but then it would change screen to the normal blue windows screen I mentioned above.
Again sorry to post so soon, I just thought this new info might help.
Thanks,
John
-drasnor
That said...between the great help from Thrax and drasnor, I have been able to get my laptop almost fixed. First I was not able to choose the repair option but after some fixing from above people...I was able to press enter to install XP and then select repair...which worked but everytime I ran it, it would stop at certain files and say that it cannot copy them over. Each time I tried to repair, it would stop at the same files, ufat.dll, tourW.exe,tcpip.sys and a few others. The only way to contiue with the install was to hit esc and cancel the copying of those files. I had hoped that it would still fix XP...which it didnt.
I mentioned this to drasnor and he said the problems of those files not being able to copy over could be a scratch cd, dirty cd drive, etc. The XP install cd was a copied version I made as backup and it didnt look bad...but I looked around for the real XP cd and found it.
I put in the cd and it made it through the whole process without stopping once which was great. Then the screen flashed and changed to the installing windows where it explains the whole new look and features it comes with. Now up to this point I never....ever got this far. It made it through the 'Preparing installation' and right now I think it might be stuck on 'Installing windows'. It says it takes about 39 min to complete.
The reason I said stuck is because...a small windows popped up saying 'FatalError' An error has been encountered that prevents Setup from continuing Press OK to view the setup log file.
I didnt press ok yet because in the bottom right hand corner there is a status bar that keep moving showing that the install is still going. So I hope that even thu the fatalerror window is open, I'm going to see if it finishes.
Ok...I waited a while and I dont think it was going to finish, so I clicked on 'OK' and a System Setup Log window opened up with the following info:
The signature for Windows XP Professional Upgrade is invalid. The error code is fffffb40.
The system cannot find message text for message number 0xfffffb40 in the message file for syssetup.dll
Fatl Error - Setup failed to install the product catalogs. This is a fatal error.
***************
Any ideas on why this happend or what I could try next.
John
Before I explain the what I did, I want to again express my biggest thanks to everyone here who bothered to reach out and help me. I know its very easy to just give up and just tell me to reformat but instead you guys tried to do different things in hope to maybe recover...so thanks goes out to you all...THNKS!!!
I'm not sure why it works but it does and will see what happens next. After trying for a long time to repair and etc, I gave in and did an install. When I selected the partition with windows already installed, it asked if I was sure...I figured to let it do it anyways, figuring I have lost all data...so I installed xp pro on the same partition with the old one and after restarting the laptop, it works fine....so far. All my programs are gone from the desktop but when I goto explorer and look in the programs folder they are all there. Some are missing files or need to be re-registered again, but some are still fine. All my pictures are there and all files.
I just have one question about things that I should do after installing XP. Meaning are there certain things I need to download to keep it safe...should I download ALL updates from microsoft? Are there certain updates I should NOT download? The Xp Pro cd I have is version 2002 service pack 2.
Thanks again for everything,
John
Turn on System restore.
Get Norton Ghost, install the recovery partition, and make a boot CD, have Ghost make an OS backup every 30 days.
There. 100% error proof restoration. The only thing that could possibly screw THIS up is the drive dying.