windows xp wont start

peteym

hey,

I have windows xp professional and all of sudden it will not boot up lately. It doesn't even get as far as the screen with the windows logo on it. I was advised by a friend to reinstall xp or repair it from the xp disk.

When I boot up from the disk I'm asked: to setup windows xp press enter..... I do this and then I have to press f8 to agree to the license agreement. I was told then that I should have the option to select the windows xp installation thats on my computer and be able to repair it or to install a fresh copy of windows xp without repairing. But unfortunately I am not getting this option, the option I am getting is showing me existing partitions and unpartitioned space. It seems like my computer is partitioned or whatever (sorry but dont fully understand this). Its asking me to select the partition for xp to be installed on, when I do this its saying to choose a type of format. But I do not want to do this as I have loads of stuff on my computer that I do not want to be lost. Oh how I wish I had backed everything up now......

So can anyone help me?

azzeretti

What is the exact problem you are having? When the PC boots, does it just keep restarting? Is there any message on screen, a blue screen?

This shoulds like the drive may be corrupt in some way. If I were you I would try and boot the PC again with the CD and choose the recovery console. Once there run this command:

chkdsk /F /R

This should preform a check on the disk and fix any minor issues. This is a place to start, there are other things to try if this fails but, I would start here.

peteym

I don't really know the problem, one day it just wouldn't boot up for me. It was saying initializing ide drives for ages then a black screen with white writing saying my computer was terminated unexpectedly previously and giving me the option to select last known good configuration etc etc. When I would select an option then, nothing would happen. After about 10 minutes, maybe more it would just restart and the same would happen all over again.

I've come across recovery console on my googling travels but was put off it when I seen a few people saying not to go near it. Will I harm the computer in any way by doing what you just said???

azzeretti

Google chkdsk to check it out.

Its a Microsoft util for listing disk status and fixing errors. It shouldn't harm any data.

Check Microsofts site to be certain as although I have never had any trouble with Chkdsk (and can't even imagine how it could effect data) I don't want you coming looking for me!

peteym

any idea about this whole partitioning craic?

Mountjoy Mugger

Unpartitioned space essentially means there's extra capacity on the hard disk that can't be used at present. It needs to be formatted (made readable/writable) for it to be used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

peteym

I see, and its saying that theres 239256 MB free on the partitioned space. If I installed XP here do you know if I'd lose any data?

Mountjoy Mugger

If you format and install on the unpartitioned space, you are creating another install of XP on a separate partition. You'll have another "Windows XP Preofessional" line when you boot up initially. Obviously only one of these will work. There's more stuff about boot.ini etc, but that'll probably acare you away.

Your data should be secure on the other partition and it's possible you'll be able to drag/copy it over to the new partition you'll have created.

Games etc. will have to be reinstalled as will applications that were in the previous install. MP3s et al should be ok.

EDIT: I would seriously recommend trying the repair option first.

peteym

repair option as per chkdsk?

Mountjoy Mugger

As in Recovery Console! chkdsk will certainly do no harm either. It finds corrupt/damaged files and identifies them as well as examining the hard disk, usually with a *.chk0001/0/2/ extension. They can then be safely deleted. No real hope of recovering them.

azzeretti

Mountjoy Mugger wrote:

As in Recovery Console! chkdsk will certainly do no harm either. It finds corrupt/damaged files and identifies them as well as examining the hard disk, usually with a *.chk0001/0/2/ extension. They can then be safely deleted. No real hope of recovering them.

The /F /R option will fix and recove any issues with the bad sectors and unreadable data. There shouldn't be any data loss involved at all.

The reason you are being asked to format the partition during the install is that (I guess) partition table is corrupt. This means that the XP setup thinks there isn't an existing OS on the PC (it checks for this). It then asks to format the entire unpartition space. Because of this you can't dual boot either (i.e install to c:\windows2) because setup can't see the system parition to start with! Your best bet is trying to recover the MBR/Partition Table by recovery.

There is also fixmbr to try in the console, but don't touch this yet, this is a little bit more tricky

Capt'n Midnight

Stupid question,
have you tried to get into safe mode yet ?

Press F8 when windows is about to start, and choose the option for safe mode, if you have installed any software recently then probably best to try a system restore. If you have installed hardware, including usb things, remove them.

Next option is the recovery console from the CD,
can you do dir C:
if it don't see your files it's not good news,
a linux boot disk like knoppix can be a handy way to copy files from the computer to an external usb hard drive,

the next bit is for reference it's not a suggestion

if the partition table is toast then you are looking at a linux app like testdisk there are windows utilities but kinda academic if windows won't boot,
put the hdd in as a slave and use www.ptdd.com to check out the partition