computer wont boot up,hard drive is salvageable

slickmcvic

Hi,
As I returned to my desktop after downloading and installing codecs my tower decided to turn itself off via a blue screen.
I noticed a message coming up about "deleting registry files,"assumed it was a virus and cut the power to machine!...anyways when I went to reboot the startup went along with normal procedure until some error msg came up preventing me from going any further....(I'd remember only this happened before Xmas!).....Anyways I have managed to recover a load of files from the hard -drives desktop through the use of a hard-drive enclosure but a friend tested booting up his own tower using the hard-drive and found a similar problem occurred

...is their any way I can find out if a virus has infected the drive,fix it and boot up the computer as a lot of licensed software is on that computer that I need to use.

If I recall the specific error msg I'll post it

bhickey

If the hard drive is still in the enclosure then then you could start by scanning it from another computer using your existing antivirus software and also Malwarebytes and report back.

slickmcvic

the error msg that comes up reads "recovering orphaned file dscaler mpeg2"

...it insists on doing a disk check.
I tried booting up the PC with an XP disc today but got into trouble when it wouldn't accept my administrator password...any ideas?

Odaise Gaelach

That screenshot you put up is almost completely illegible by the way.

When you start Windows there is usually a warning period of about ten seconds when you can cancel the disk check before it starts. Is it possible for you to do that?

slickmcvic

When you start Windows there is usually a warning period of about ten seconds when you can cancel the disk check before it starts. Is it possible for you to do that?

nope, tried that,i can kip the disk check but it wont boot up

Odaise Gaelach

slickmcvic wrote: »

nope, tried that,i can kip the disk check but it wont boot up

How does it not boot up? Do you get an error or does it reboot or...?

dinjo

to me it sounds like there is a issue with the boot log file in your operating system. there is a few things you can do.

1. IF you have the original operating system disk then boot the computer from the disk. when going through this process, choose the option to "REPAIR EXISTING SETUP" this will re install all of the important system files but wont touch any of your personal files.

2. remove the hard disk from the computer and connect it to another computer as a second hard drive. this will allow you to retrieve all of your information from the hard drive before re installing the OS. in order to do this you will need to have a copy of your original OS which i can tell is XP, but if you do have a disk, DEFINATLY ATTEMPT option 1 before trying option 2.

hope this helps.

dyer

looks like xp is stuck on a corrupt file... namely part of that codec you installed, and probably due to your turning it off

can you boot into safe mode? press F8 after the bios post and select safe mode.. once up and running, if you manage to get that far .. hit the start button and in the run box type 'cmd' then type 'chkdsk X: /r' where X is the drive letter your operating system resides on.

if you cant get into windows even in safe mode, boot from the xp install disk let it load through and choose the recovery console, from there perform the same step above.





usually just press 1 here and type in your admin password if you have one.. if not just leave it blank and hit enter.

the chkdsk /r will scan the surface of the disk for any bad sectors and replace them with spares.

slickmcvic

Thanks for the replies....I hadn't seen this when I went to solve the problem on Friday but I reckon you were spot on!
Basically if I didnt allow the disk check to run I would recieve the following error

So what I done on Friday was booted up through the original XP disk and selected every HELP command on the list going (bar FORMAT!). I remember the CHKDSK Commands and a partition command having an effect on the machine and was able to reboot and login afterwards!
I showed the eroor code to a friend of mine afterwards and he reckoned the only solution would have been to format the disk!....I had a lot of one off configured CNC software installed on the machine so I'm delighted to get it up and running again...thanks for the replies!

dyer

formatting is for n00bs

glad you got it working anyway.