Can it be saved?

kaimera

right-o,

I was updating my laptop to SP2 when I had to cancel the installation with about 15-20 mins remaining, and leave with my laptop.

as I was leaving, I had to shut it down.

now when I go to boot, it gets past the windows screen and then a BSOD telling me winsrv.exe cant be found [an error code too] and reinstalling it might fix the prob.

I'm running XP Pro but I dont have my install disk nor a bootable disk.

is there anyway to recover anything off my hdd or is a format the only way?

there is some stuff I'd like to save [namely college stuff] before I format and do a fresh install and update.

I dont know how the recovery console works :-/

any ideas would be great.

jessy

No you done need to format, but you will need to get a program that lets you access your files. Unfortunately i cant remember the name of it. It boots from the CD and through it you might be able to uninstall SP2 if not you can still save your file. So if i were you i would be having a look for program that lets you do that.

If i remember the name ill let you know.

jessy

Knoppix

Its linux on a CD, you dont install it you just run it from the CD, this should led you access the files.

kaimera

kool.

this will allow me to boot into windows but then can I then use my burner to save my files? or even a usb key?

jessy

You not booting into Windows, you?re running linux from the CD. Knoppix if fairly user friendly and has good Plug and play support so i would imagine it would pick up you USB key or CD burner. if it dosn't then SuSe will.

rmacm

I'll bring down Knoppix or something similar next week ok. I'll download it here at home...

Cheers
Rory

Capt'n Midnight

Recovery console works in two ways
a - off the bootable CD that you don't have
b - off the folder you didn't install from the CD
(on the CD "\i386\winnt32 /cmdcons" )

Knoppix recognises USB keys
and yes it has cd writer programs but you can't use it since the CD is in the drive. You can install knoppix on to fat32, you can resize many NTFS partitions (depends on if deragmented space is free - mft can get in the way though) and setup a fat 32 partition there to install it into. Knoppix can use captive NTFS to read/write to NTFS but it's messy to setup due to licencing.

Knoppix will pickup many Network cards and some wifi cards too so you can use internet lineighbourhood to copy to a windows file share.

NTFSDOS is a util that will allow you to read NTFS drives with a dos boot disk

ColmOT [MSFT]

The SP should have rolled back when you cancelled it. It keeps track of the changes it makes so that it can roll back in case of a catastrophic event during upgrate (i.e. machine powers off/user cancels/fatal error).

How did you cancel it? DId you wait for it to clean up after itself?

Why did you start the upgrade if you didn't have time for it to complete?

kaimera

thanks rory. I take it I owe you more pints then?!

I *thought* I had enough time to do the update but then plans changed I was cut short, hence the cancel.

thanks for the help.

rmacm

I suppose I might as well be ruthless and collect whats rightfully mine :-)..At this rate I'll be able to drink for free for the year. Maybe Sunday night depends on how I'm feeling after Colins 21st on Sat.

Cheers
Rory