Serious PC help needed!

[Budman68]

Ok, I have a dual boot system with win 98 and XP. When I go to start up XP it goes right to the "choice" screen of safe mode, safe mode with networking, or start windows normally. Well everytime I choose one of the options it just restarts. This is very serious as I have everything on that (XP) operating system. I did a backup about a week ago but I still have a lot of contacts info that is new. Please help quick?? Also wanted to mention that I'm using the Win 98 side of the system so I really don't think it's the hard drive.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

PM sent. Give me a call.

[Guest]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

Can't get to the files needed via 98 and copy them over to another paretition and re-install the XP side?

Just a thought...

Pat

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

1.Could be your boot file/boot sector has got hosed.
2. Are you able to throw in your XP disk and and some point be presented with a menu... and select restore?
3. Number 2 alittle more detail.

With XP,in safe mode, there will be several options not only bootup normally, but others.
Is there an option listed "Last known good configuration(your most recent settings that worked)"?
If so, this is the one you should click on it will actually revert back to or find the recent working configuration.

If you don't see what I'm reffering too.
Rebbot the PC using XP and hold down the f8 key and the keyboard and it will eventually bring up a statup menu.
The mentioned option should be listed in this start menu.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

He has partition/boot magic, so he's able to pop in the boot floppy and set the boot partition to bootmagic, 98, or XP.

It will boot into 98 and bootmagic. It won't boot into the XP (NTFS) partition...even in safe mode. Since it's NTFS, not possible to copy the files from 98. We were able to boot XP from CD, select the repair option, and it gave us a C:\ prompt. I wasn't sure what to do from there except make sure his files were safe.

I tried to do so, but when trying to cd into "documents and settings", we were getting an "Access Denied" error. That's where I left off.

Since this happened after the windows update, I'm pretty sure Microsoft will give him free support on this, but if anyone has any good ideas, please PM budman.

[Guest]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

I'm not referring to sys files, only important data files mentioned. PST's, etc etc

Pat

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

I'll be watching the thread and see how things pan out.
I just PMed SeventhSon with some additional info.
I'm at work and due to having a busy night, I'm not really able devote time to answer every post.
Sorry. Nonetheless, SeventhSon should be getting in contact with you here shortly, if he decides to devote the time to it.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

Well, all the important files are under My Documents which you get to through via Documents and Settings.

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm
Go here browse down and you will see what you need to do.
Recovery console is the way to go or usually preferred in scenarios like these.

A side note:
I'm finding it alittle hard to believe (don't misunderstand me, not being mean just raising a potential point/possiblitiy) boot magic can't boot into xp. Unless its an older version of boot magic, it should support/troubleshoot xp boot issues. Being NTFS shouldn't be an issue if its a more recent version.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

Soap, I think that is definitely the ticket. I just wasn't sure what to do after the recovery console gave me the C:\ prompt. That page describes the Access Denied error and everything.

bootmagic is working as advertised. It simply lets you set the boot partition. Through it, budman was able to set the boot partition to be bootmagic (which presented him a choice of 98 or XP), direct into 98 or direct into XP. When booting into XP either direct or through bootmagic, budman was running into the types of problems described in your link. E.g., bootsector on XP partition corrupted or bad ntldr and/or ntdetect.com, etc.

That link is awesome. So are the other links you sent me.

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

So, is the issue resolved or still needs to be?

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

budman's on the east coast and asleep right now. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] we're going to resume tomorrow afternoon. at this point i think all his files are safe so he can breathe easy in that regards. even if that partition never became bootable, he could always install a fresh copy of XP on a new hard drive and mount the bum partition and get at all his files.

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

type in "fixboot" without the parenthesis or "fixmbr"
Once this is done, this will allow him to boot into XP once again. This may hose boot magic's boot menu, not really sure. Nonetheless, once inside of XP,(if boot magic's boot menus is hosed)he can use boot magics rescue/boot disk and reset settings(boot menu)in bootmagic within XP. Follow?
However, you should really use recovery console.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

i follow.

do you think there is any issue in the fact that fixboot and fixmbr are running off of an XP CD and his installation is XP SP2?

[Soap]

Re: Serious PC help needed!

[ QUOTE ]
he could always install a fresh copy of XP on a new hard drive and mount the bum partition and get at all his files.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, this is another way of doing it as well and for some it may be easier too.