windows won't boot

[PrettyInPunk8302]

i was on my computer earlier and it said that windows had an update to install,
but that this one needed me to agree to terms and conditions and all that good stuff.
so i did and it did its updating thing and it asked me to restart, so i did. ever since then, i haven't been able to boot up windows. i've tried booting from safe mode, last known good configuration, and all that, but nothing. i saw someone else's post about going into recovery console through the windows xp cd, so i went into
it and it said:

1:C:\Windows

which windows installation would you like to log onto

So i pressed 1 since that's what i wanted to log into and then it told me to type the administrator password. i tried typing my password that i use to log into windows, but i guess that's not what it wanted. i really have no idea what to do, and i really
hope i'm not going to have to reinstall windows, so any help/advice you can give me i would really appreciate. thank you so much.

~brie

[high63294]

You might have tried to use the password of your user account but what the computer is asking is the password of the Administrator account, if you did it then I do not know what could be wrong but if you didn't then use the Admin password if you do not know of putting any password in that account or if you know then type it in but if you do not know it might now have a password so just type enter when it asks without typing anything.

Note: When updates are ready to install your computer has to be fresh that's how I will call it I mean If you were using the internet downloading stuff chatting, or all that kinds of things and you left it on and then the next day has an update ready do not install it because your computer has been running programs and processes are or were still in memory or running in background and all that affects the way you install updates. So I recommend that you restart your computer and without any open programs running you install the uodate and I assure that you are 99.9% problem-free.

[johnnyis42]

if you did not install windows yourself and create an administrator password, chances are the administrator password is blank, so when you boot to the recovery console and it asks for the administrator password, try just hitting enter and seeing if that gives you the command prompt access (that being that it doesn't tell you that the password is incorrect, and you're sitting at a blank c:\windows> thing)

first thing to try when you get there is the command:

chkdsk /r

let that run through and see if it lets you boot into windows when it's done. if not, then go back into the recovery console and type in:

fixboot

it will then say something like "oh my god! you want to do that?!?! are you freaking sure?!?!?!"
so ignore the windows hysteria and choose yes, what do you have to loose at this point anyway, right?

at that point it should fix it. if not, get the exact error message it tells you when you try to boot and post it here.

lastly, the update was most likely service pack 2 for windows xp. i have seen this happen alot, and the fixboot usually takes care of it. chances are the cause of this had nothignt o do with programs you had running, but instead had to do with either the drive geometry of the wierd utility partitions your computer manufacturer uses (i'm guessing it's either an e machine, compaq or HP) or another program or utility you installed that altered a registry setting outside of what microsoft expected it to. either way, try it out and see what happens.

good luck!