Help Please! Install Repair Problem...

[Katmandu]

I have a PC here that (was working flawlessly up til now)... Now it will not fully boot-up fully.

It gets to the Windows XP slash screen then flickers the BSOD and then reboots. It keeps going thru this cycle. Whenever I try to power it down (pull the plug -Only way), it simply resumes this stupid reboot cycle.

At no time does the BIOS screen appear and I'm NOT able to access the BIOS.

I was able to boot from the CD to the XP Setup disc. I was attempting to do an Install Repair (NOT the Recovery Console method). It went and copied all the files to the HD.

Upon rebooting up pops this Error Message.... "Set up can not set the required configuration information. This indicates an internal Setup error."

I have Critical information on this HD that I can not afford to lose.

What are my Options at this point ???

TIA!

 

[Hefemeister]

1st if you have critical data I would try to pull the drive and put it in another computer as a slave to see if you could back up the data. After you pull the data i would do a reinstall. You cannot get into safe mode?

 

[ECTech]

i recommend getting Hiren's Boot Cd. you can it to perform drive maintenance, recovery, and also kill the cmos. you may have a boot sector virus, or just a damaged boot record. give it a try...

 

[Hefemeister]

i recommend getting Hiren's Boot Cd. you can it to perform drive maintenance, recovery, and also kill the cmos. you may have a boot sector virus, or just a damaged boot record. give it a try...

great idea. I would still try to get the critical data off first. If you have no backup and have critical data, save it first then try to repair the disk. No sense in trying to repair a disk only to render it useless which is always a possiblity. In the future if you have critical data ALWAYS back it up so you can suffer a hd failure.

 

[ECTech]

great idea. I would still try to get the critical data off first. If you have no backup and have critical data, save it first then try to repair the disk. No sense in trying to repair a disk only to render it useless which is always a possiblity. In the future if you have critical data ALWAYS back it up so you can suffer a hd failure.

yep, its usually a good idea to do some drive recovery first. then recover the data, that way in the event that some data is corrupted the maintenance will hopefully fix that for you.

 

[Katmandu]

great idea. I would still try to get the critical data off first. If you have no backup and have critical data, save it first then try to repair the disk. No sense in trying to repair a disk only to render it useless which is always a possiblity. In the future if you have critical data ALWAYS back it up so you can suffer a hd failure.

I actually do have a backup (.bfk file) and some other files. Unfortuately, they are about a week or two old.

It's actually my wife's work PC I'm working on. I've been TRYING in vain to teach her (and get her) to BACKUP her files! She is very good about using the memory sticks, but not her PC files.

That said... how do I go about accessing these .bfk files on another PC ?? I'll have to reformat the original HD to access it there I presume.

One thing I'm gonna try with that HD..... I just bought a USB External HD enclosure the other day. I'm going to set it up in there and see what I can access.

If (WHEN), I do access it. I'll of course do a Virus scan on it before anything....but how do I clean the MBR if the virus is located there ???

Am going to have to reformat/reinstall this HD ???

 

[Mr.Nemo]

It depends on what file system the HD is in. A native external HD is in Fat32 but I'm not sure what an enclosure would do. If the drive is NTFS, then you can put it in the enclosure and plug it into another pc and theoretically should be able to see it. If you can afford it, you could send it off to data recovery centers. I do not know how much they cost but its a possibility non-the-less. Here is some helpful commands.

FDISK /MBR from dos (Writes a new MBR arround an existing partition table)
FIXMBR from the windows console (Same thing)
FIXBOOT from the windows console

 

[Katmandu]

It depends on what file system the HD is in. A native external HD is in Fat32 but I'm not sure what an enclosure would do. If the drive is NTFS, then you can put it in the enclosure and plug it into another pc and theoretically should be able to see it. If you can afford it, you could send it off to data recovery centers. I do not know how much they cost but its a possibility non-the-less. Here is some helpful commands.

FDISK /MBR from dos (Writes a new MBR arround an existing partition table)
FIXMBR from the windows console (Same thing)
FIXBOOT from the windows console

The HD is in NTFS.

I set up another HD I had here into the External enclosure and it worked like a charm! Just inserted it in the case and plugged it into the USB port and there it was!

You're refering to the Windows "Recovery" Console correct ??

 

[EricB]

put it back in the machine. hit f8 upon boot. hit disable auto restart. tell us the error code. let find out what kind of cut that you have before we apply the band aid

 

[mssssee2]

As said plug your HD to another pc as slave recover all data that you wish to the HD. Fomat the drive using windows format RIght click --> Format or by cmd

format rootletter:

were roptletter: is C: D: etc.

Then take off the primary disc and try setting up windows at that pc using yours HDD, once you are finished try replugging it in your original pc it wll probably work.