XP: Corrupt system file... NO BOOT! HELP! - Page 2

rpertusio · 12-28-2003, 06:00 PM

Before you try anything else, you may just have a corrupt MBR.

*IF you only have one partition on the drive, then go ahead and follow these instructions on how to reset the MBR*
(If you have more than one partition, do NOT do this)

Boot to the XP CD (or floppy), and choose the FIRST "r" (not the 'repair install' as mentioned in other posts)

Once you get to the prompt, type the following:
FIXMBR
(this will restore a standard Master Boot Record (MBR) to your drive)

If that doesnt work, then go back in to the Recovery Console again, and try:
FIXBOOT
(This will repair the Boot Sector of your drive)

- rp

rpertusio · 12-28-2003, 06:16 PM

One other 'solution' I thought of:

You can mount the drive as 'slave' as you and TM12 have suggested. On the drive, you should find the "\windows\system32\config\system" file. Make a backup copy of it.

Then, you'll want to visit the "\Windows\Repair" folder. There may be a good (but maybe older) copy of the corrupt registry file ('system'). Copy that one into the \system32\config\ folder, and you may be able to boot. This should work, if the problem is soley a registry error.

And yes, those are the correct floppy disks. If you have a CD, that will work too (and faster).

- rp

TM12 · 12-30-2003, 03:03 PM

That's interesting... The articles that we used just a couple of weeks ago appear to be gone. The only one I see that matches is: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;823614 which seems to be the one rpertusio is refering to. If it works, great. It's a WHOLE lot simpler than the way we had to do it. Also interesting is the fact that it doesn't provide the link to the floppies. I don't remember the exact reason we ended up using the floppies but I think it was because the Recovery Console is not available if it wasn't previously installed from Windows.

rpertusio - a bad MBR or boot.ini wouldn't have let it get that far. Also, I'm the most familiar with XP Pro which requires the administrator password to access the Recovery Console. Our recent problem involved, of all things, a damaged security branch of the registry and we couldn't login to the RC. The KB article and the floppies saved us somehow. I'll get the articles from work tomorrow if I can and for entertainment you can see what the long way looks like. It basically involves resetting the registry to when the OS was installed, including, it's important to note, the original admin PW. And, then Restoring to the most recent Restore Point. It's worked for us both times it needed to but if the new way works that's even better.

rpertusio · 12-30-2003, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TM12
rpertusio - a bad MBR or boot.ini wouldn't have let it get that far.

It can, depending if it is a filesystem problem or a corrupt registry. If a corrupt registry, you can still log on, provided that windows has enough to authenticate you as an admin. If you recall, the account information is actually stored in the SAM file. (And furthermore, the Syskey protection is derived from the 'system' file.)

I know it can get that far. I have been troubleshooting a problem lately, which corrupts the MBR. Only once (of the ~50 times I've used the recovery console) did it give me a bluescreen error.

In my case, the corrupt MBR would only corrupt SOME files, say... any file/folder starting with the letter "J" and onward. Thus, some system files were unblemished, but the system couldn't 'see' the registry, causing windows to spew the 'missing or corrupt' messages.

I could boot to a CD (windows Preinstallation environment) and see 1/3 of the files on the hard drive. Issuing the 'fixmbr' command would fix the master boot record, and all files would show up again.

Furthermore, for future reference, the command console can be installed to the hard drive by running the XP setup with /cmdcons switch (installs to c:\cmdcons). Otherwise, booting to a CD (or floppies) will be the only way to get to the recovery console, which is what TM12 mentioned.

- - -
[Edit:]
TM12, I didn't know that Microsoft article existed until you pointed it out. Looks like it was just created on November 11, 2003. I thought that was an undocumented way to fix it. Thanks for the link!

- rp

TM12 · 12-30-2003, 04:05 PM

rheteric, if you'll pardon me I have a question for rp.

rp,

Did you find out what caused the MBR corruption? The only thing close that I've experienced was rather frequent corruption of the Windows product activation file and other infrequent mischief that I eventually traced to a bad harddrive. In my experience it's always been that it either booted or it didn't. Also, I've never experienced a blue screen with the RC. I'm not that up on the security aspects, I just know we couldn't log on because the security branch was damaged. Couldn't even change the admin PW with the "master key" ERD.

TM12 · 12-30-2003, 04:07 PM

rp - if you weren't aware of that article then you definitely know your stuff. I hope I can show you the other ones, it was time-consuming and painful but it worked great.

rpertusio · 12-30-2003, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TM12
Did you find out what caused the MBR corruption?

I still have the problem. It is most likely caused by a Serial ATA controller, drivers, or motherboard (A7N8X Dlx) and the way it handles Maxtor drives in particular. At some point, I will write a post after I have given up on my own troubleshooting. The hard drive itself is flawless.

Other causes of MBR are often seen when abrupt power changes (or even power off without warning) cause the write cache on the drive to be purged (meaning, any data about to be written to the disk was lost, and gone forever.) Simply disable write caching on any hard drives to protect against this. (Write caching typically increases disk performance and is enabled by default.)

- rp

TM12 · 12-30-2003, 04:32 PM

I wouldn't rule out the Maxtor too quickly. My problem involved a WD and no matter what I test I ran, including WD's tools, I couldn't get it to hiccup. Then finally, almost 6 months later it burped as I was writing zeros to get rid of some Linux issues and I finally had a code for an RMA. Haven't had a problem yet with it's replacement.

rpertusio · 12-30-2003, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TM12
I wouldn't rule out the Maxtor too quickly.

Drive works fine on the PATA channel. Not on the SATA channel.

If I post a thread, I'll give you a link, rather than eat up rheteric's thread.

- rp

TM12 · 12-30-2003, 05:33 PM

Amen