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Computer not starting really need help

AwDawg

n00b
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Messages
6
Hi... I think I got my self into a real good jar. I was messing around and decided I wanted to delete the old system files from my C: drive from a previous install of windows xp... (because since I have reinstalled on the D drive and I assumed I did not need 2 copies of the system files) I had assumed that the system files from the older install were not needed... So of course I had figured that I would just delete the old file's which were a pain in the back to get rid of because I had to do some major permission changes and reset's for each and every single file to gain "administrator" privelages even though I am already set as admin on my own machine. Anyways I went to restart my computer about 2 days later and I come to find out when I get to my "Veryifying DMI pool data" screen it comes up shows the normal information then at the bottom it say's something along the lines of "missing ntldr press ctrl+alt+dlt to restart" and it will not boot into windows no matter what I can seem to think of doing.... I'm not sure if I deleted something that has to do with raid or if it has just to do with windows system files... but I would really like to be able to keep or backup the really important stuff that I have on my drives... (such as my family pictures from the last 5 years I don't have backed up anywhere else, and my last 3 years worth of my college work... (papers, and graphic projects and what not.)) anyways I have a 3rd hard drive which is not on my raid which is also pretty empty, but I can't seem to isntall windows to it because it seem's to give me erors about a page fault on a non-paged area everytime I go to format that drive and install windows... (In hopes I can install it on that drive then read the info off of my other drives.) If anyone knows how I can either just fix the NTLDR or whatever file im missing or has any recommendations besides something along the lines of "It's busted forever and never gonna work again you might as well give it to me" pleeease help me out I will really appreciate it! Thanks in Advance!

-Adam
 
eeeek. you probably deleted ntldr from the root of your c: drive. bad move. you can try to restore it from a recovery disk, but i'm sure your rig is going to blow up more if you deleted a bunch of stuff.

here's a better solution......score another hard drive. strap your existing drive as a slave and make you new drive the master. install a fresh copy of xp on the new drive. once it's alive, go clean up your old drive. delete everything but data. by having your data on a seperate physical drive, it'll also keep you from getting in this position again.

good luck.
 
well... I do have that seperate empty 80 gigger already in the computer... if I can get that to let me install windows xp on it... is it possible for me to have that plugged in under my already (stripe raided) drives that are already set up as they are and possibly expect to have some acess to them so that i can back up all of my stuff to the 3rd smaller drive and and then expect to just maybe (crosses fingers) reformat the 2 raided 120 gig drives and just reinstall windows to them and then copy all the needed files back from the other drive and just delete the windows install off of the 80 gigger again and then that time do the smart thing and just back up all my important stuff to there and just redo that every couple weeks and JUST use it as a backup drive? DID i lose you anywhere in that confusing sounding paragraph? hope not if so does that sound like a easy enough to achieve outcome? and also I've been trying to install XP onto that 3rd drive and so far I just keep coming up with some page fault on a "non-paged" drive or something along those lines... It's really hard to remember my errors offhand and then travel to my schools computer labs and remember exactly what they were... anyways once again much thanks to any and every one that can help me in some way

-Adam
 
You said you had XP on the D drive, but later you said the 80GB couldn't be written. So, does that mean the RAID setup is partitioned? If so, you should be able to reinstall XP back to the C partition. XP will then modify the MBR to point back to the C partition NTLDR.

Also, where is all your data, on the C partition or somewhere else? If it isn't on the C partition, you should be safe as you reinstall XP to the C partition.

While technically feasible, having multiple installs of Windows on a machine is not recommended.

Take TBird's recommendation to heart, get your precious data away from the Windows partition. Makes data backups easier and lets you reformat the Windows partition as needed. I always go with 4 partitions : Windows, Swap, Applications, Data.
 
well yeah my 2 120 giggers that were raided are parttiioned originally 1 c: setup as 10 gigs to just be for the windows install... then the D had rougly 225 or so jsut for all my data and installs and what not. Then after a while I had problems and had to reformat and reinstall... while I thought I was reformatting both of my drives and backing up all my stuff (via a networked computer when both computers were still working fine) I actually ended up only reformatting the D drive... and that's where windows pretty much decided to install itself.. and I thought It was going back onto the C... and well the C had like 10 gigs chewed up for some crazy reason on the old system files from the previous install... so I figured I'd be fine deleting them because I also had system files on the D which I believed was all I needed for the new install. So I went to delete the old ones off of my C and they seemed to be protected like crazy... so I had to spend about a mintue on every single file and folder I wanted to delete by changing the permission and resetting my self as an admin with access to the files and folders which I didnt have... was a pain but I did it... and the computer was runnign fine... actually even quicker so I assumed all was good... and I thought the comptuer aboslutely would not let me delete somethign that was running in the background or was relevent to it starting... short of something that .... seemingly simple to me considering I (think... well am pretty sure that i) have copies of the system files and all that fun stuff on the D... but are you guy's saying i have to go out and buy yet another drive just to install windows and then try to figure out how to raid in my old drives again... but as slave drives? then work on copying info over again? hmmm... was hoping for a nice easy... ("use a 98 boot disk and reformat your 80 gigger that should clear up your install errors" "then just install xp on there then set that as your system drive then just plug your other drives in slaved like normal but in there raid places then just copy the stuff to your 80 gigger reformat your other drives reset them as your master drives while your 80 gig drive is unplugged, re-install windows to your freshly formatted raided 120 gig drives then plug in the 80 gigger copy the files you need back reformat it again and just use it as backup) but... if that won't work... lol keep throwing solutions at me please guys.... I really need my college work back for my senior seminar next year :-/ (computer graphics major) so of course ALL of my college work is on the drive... and being lazy like I am I am too stupid to backup all my stuff every 2 weeks onto blank DVD-R's which is what is going to start happening if I can keep all my stuff :-/ anyways please and thanks for more and more help!
 
if it's any help to have my drives listed in the computer i have:
2 - 120 GB 7200 rpm hard disks
1 - 80 gb 5400 rpm HD
1 - dvd-rw drive
1 - cd-rw drive (dunno why? just for fast cd-r burns)

The 2 120 giggers are the raided drives. setup in a striped raid array

The 80 gigger i just put in there recently but is usually not plugged in because I had ORIGINALLY just planned upon using it when I had a big video post production project due to edit digital video...

I am running an athlon xp 2200 with 512 MB corsair XMS ram
a radeon 9800 pro 128 mb vid card
with a soyo tek dragon ultra platinum mobo

that's all I can really think of listing for specs... although that is probably irrelevant I'd figure I'd post that just incase someone needed to know for an answer to give me.


Thanks again
 
So, you have two partitions, C & D.

C is where XP was originally installed, and where all your important data is.

D is a partition you recently reformatted and installed XP.

Therefore, D is fairly clean. Windows just doesn't know to go there. Couldn't you just reinstall to the D partition? That should help Windows catch up.

BTW, during the install, make sure it is the D partition :)
 
I was looking around and found Bart's PE @ http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
and thought that would be good to probably get access through an explorer to access my files... but.... I don't understand the slip streaming of updating a windows install disc... it says


What must I do?
A: You must slipstream your source Window XP files with service pack 1.

To slipstream your files do the following:

Copy all files from your Windows XP installation/setup CD-Rom to your harddisk. For example you can copy it to the folder c:\winxpsp1. Make sure you copy all files and all subdirectories! You should now have a file called c:\winxpsp1\i386\setupldr.bin. If not go back, you did something wrong.
The location of the i386 folder may differ, for example when you have a dual boot MSDN cd-rom it will be in \%lang%\winxp\%edition%, where %lang% is your language, like "ENGLISH", "GERMAN" and %edition% is "Home" or "Pro". Other CD's may have it just in the root or in some other location.
Apply service pack to your files using the "-s" option (you must supply full path).
xpsp1_en_x86.exe -s:c:\winxpsp1
Now use the folder c:\winxpsp1 in PE Builder as the path to your installation source files.


well of course I go to do that on my friends computer and I don't seem to have an option to select the folder manually at all... and I do not have any clue with the heck this "-s" option is... I was thinking maybe it was in the properites of the file and I had to type something in... but I cannot figure it out. any help would be great... thanks
 
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