Author Topic: HP Pavilion a1012x Recovery Problem - Windows XP (Read 54242 times)

Shane · « **Reply #25 on:** July 28, 2014, 07:24:36 pm »

What you want to do is make a ghost boot disk instead. I never use the ghost gui in Windows, I hate it. Instead I use their dos one (Or Windows PE now) and use it. It does the whole drives, doesnt report drive letters because it is doing the entire dirve, partitions and all

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #26 on:** July 28, 2014, 07:45:58 pm »

Thanks Shane. Since I last posted I gave up on Ghost and downloaded HDD Raw Copy Tool from http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

Its in the process of copying the hard drive. I'll let you know when it finishes.

backtolife · « **Reply #27 on:** July 29, 2014, 08:25:50 am »

OK, it looks like I now have two identical drives. Booting from either has the same result. In the upper left hand corner appears the word Error!

I'm ready to begin the repair.

Boggin · « **Reply #28 on:** July 29, 2014, 10:18:45 am »

Quote from: backtolife on July 29, 2014, 08:25:50 am

OK, it looks like I now have two identical drives. Booting from either has the same result. In the upper left hand corner appears the word Error!

I'm ready to begin the repair.

Cloning isn't going to restore the computer - it's just a fall back to retain the status quo should something go wrong during the clean install.

I had intended to offer my condolences on the death of your friend but was focusing on the problem at hand - but can you check with your friend's widow to see if your friend had created any system images as if/when the clean install is successful, you will be able to restore with that and as you have two HDDs, the original will always have the original personal files on.

I think you should still see if you can reincarnate the original HDD with either the Kaspersky or Hirens Boot disks prior to trying the clean install given the problems you've had so far.

Are you able to be selective in what you can restore from that cloning program or is it like Windows system image where it is all or nothing ?

Shane · « **Reply #29 on:** July 29, 2014, 10:28:43 am »

Quote

Cloning isn't going to restore the computer - it's just a fall back to retain the status quo should something go wrong during the clean install.

Yes, he knows that. Thats why I had him do the clone so that we wouldn't touch the old drive and would try to get the system up and running on the clone instead. That way we hit any snag we still have the old drive with the data as it is.

OK now that you have the new cloned drive in the system, is there any way for you to take a picture of the error you see with your phone and post it?

If the error comes up before you see anything about windows loading then I wonder if it might just be a bad master boot record. If so one quickway to try and fix that is to boot off a normal windows xp cd. When the setup comes up you choose to repair the xp and there it should take you to the recovery console.

Once in the recovery console type in
fixmbr

And have it repair the master boot record, then reboot and see if it helps at all.

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #30 on:** July 29, 2014, 10:53:38 am »

Sorry for the picture quality. The word says Error! The message come up after the typical BIOS boot information. There is no sign of Windows before the message.

Shane, I believe I've gone though the fixmbr process previously without success. I most certainly can try it again and report the results.

Boggin, I appreciate your continued interest and your help and thank you for your condolences about my friend. This man was my supervisor at one time and I am pleased that that relationship turned into a sincere and wonderful friendship. Though I received a number of hard drives (in addition to the installed drive) I would be hard pressed to make enough sense of them to determine if I could manage to restore the computer from them.

I'll report again after I run fixmbr.

backtolife · « **Reply #31 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:03:07 am »

OK, I'm presented with the following getting to the recovery console:

1. E:\MiniNT
2. C:\Windows

Which Windows installation...

Which one should I choose?

Shane · « **Reply #32 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:10:09 am »

2. C:\Windows is the windows folder.

Not sure what the minint one is, never seen that.

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #33 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:15:28 am »

Shane, I believe MiniNT is the recovery partition...

Shane · « **Reply #34 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:17:14 am »

Ah, still have it do the repair for the c:\windows only

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #35 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:23:17 am »

OK, attempting to run fixmbr results in the following warning:

** CAUTION **
This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record.

FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed.

This could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible.

If you hare not having problems accessing your drive do not continue.

Are you sure you want to write a new MBR?

Shane · « **Reply #36 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:25:38 am »

Yes. The boot record is corrupt and thats why you see the "Error"

go ahead and have it fix it. This is why we did the clone, just in case we do something that makes things worse lol

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #37 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:32:12 am »

After answering yes, received the message:

The new master boot record has been successfully written.

After reboot, the message at the top left hand side of the screen is:

Invalid partition table

Shane · « **Reply #38 on:** July 29, 2014, 11:38:09 am »

OK, looks like they might of had something really different on that system Go back into the recovery console and do these commands next

First make sure C: is the windows drive

so type in

CD C:\

Then when the prompt is at C: do
DIR

it will list the files, see if you see the windows folder and the others that should be there.

If they are then run these

FIXBOOT C:
BOOTCFG /rebuild

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #39 on:** July 29, 2014, 01:03:19 pm »

OK. Running fixboot c: resulted in the message "The new bootsector was successfully written"

Running bootcfg /rebuild resulted in the message:

Error: Failed to successfully scan disks for Windows installations. The error may be caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent Bootdfg from successfully scanning. Use chkdsk to detect any disk errors.

Note: This operation must complete successfully in order for the /add or /rebuild commands to be utilized.

Shane · « **Reply #40 on:** July 29, 2014, 03:44:47 pm »

And did the DIR pull up the folders on the C: drive?

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #41 on:** July 29, 2014, 04:27:24 pm »

Yes... Windows folder and the rest.

Shane · « **Reply #42 on:** July 29, 2014, 04:33:48 pm »

OK, well we at least now know the problem. The MBR on the drive is simply corrupt. I had seen a virus infect the MBR and the ONLY way to remove it was by deleting the partition and recreating it. Nothing would get rid of it other than that. So that shows you how deep the MBR can be and trying to repair it may not be doing the trick.

I wonder if I had you get Ubuntu and install it on that drive, if it would do the dual boot option.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

Basically I am just looking for a way to completely rebuild the boot record.

Been a long day, I am off for the night. Will be back tomorrow

Night!

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #43 on:** July 29, 2014, 04:42:55 pm »

Thanks for the help today Shane. Have a good night.

Boggin · « **Reply #44 on:** July 30, 2014, 12:48:38 am »

I found that the Kaspersky Rescue disk can initiate a chkdsk /f after it has scanned C:

This scan took about 9hrs on this machine and after I clicked on the Shutdown option on completion, went away and came back to find a chkdsk /f running which fixed my problem of a black screen, although the black screen only had a big white cursor arrow on it and not the Error alert message - but it's worth a shot.

backtolife · « **Reply #45 on:** July 30, 2014, 07:59:56 am »

Hi Boggin. Since my last post I ran chkdsk /f twice from the recovery console. This is something I've done prior to now but I thought it worth another shot. The first time I ran it it reported that it had fixed an error, the second time I ran it there were no reported repairs. After completing chkdsk the second time I reran fixboot c: and bootcfg /rebuild. bootdfg again reported that it had failed to successfully scan the disk for Windows installations.

Boggin · « **Reply #46 on:** July 30, 2014, 09:09:07 am »

When you ran the chkdsk /f from the Recovery Console did you enter the cmd as chkdsk c: /f so it would know which partition to check ?

Came across this Fred Langa article on the bootcfg cmd which has a slightly different take on it which may/not help http://www.informationweek.com/langa-letter-xps-little-known-rebuild-command/d/d-id/1042217?

Shane · « **Reply #47 on:** July 30, 2014, 11:48:00 am »

Download the ubuntu iso and burn the image to a disk and then try this, boot off the ubuntu cd and when it asks if you want to install or try, choose try. ubuntu will run off the cd and then try these commands to fix the boot loader on the drive.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestoreUbuntu/XP/Vista/7Bootloader

Shane

backtolife · « **Reply #48 on:** July 30, 2014, 02:24:23 pm »

Boggin: Yes, I did use the drive designation and I also ran the disk checking function within XP. I did read the article you referenced in your post. Thanks.

Shane: I did download the ubuntu iso, booted off the ubuntu cd, and chose try. I messed around a little with the desktop choices and noticed that, shortly thereafter, any window that opened was scrambled. I'm assuming that's a video driver issue. Anyway, a reboot with the iso resolves the problem, at least for a time.

I'm lost doing anything more. The document in the link you provided refers to rebuilding the GRUB bootload (which I don't believe I have), how to fully fix the Windows bootloader using a Windows disk (which is what we've already tried), doing something with Vista or 7 or 8 (which I don't have), how to partially fix the Windows bootloader via the boot repair graphical tool (which seems to require you to boot from a completely different iso) or via command lines (which look Greek to me). I don't know where you'd type the command lines. I also haven't seen any sign of linux type information (like dev/sda) while using at least this version of Ubuntu. What I seem to have is a graphical desktop with icons on the left side allowing you to open windows to see different things.

Anyway, needless to say, you're dealing with a virtually complete newbie using Ubuntu. Can you provide some specific instructions? Thanks.

backtolife · « **Reply #49 on:** July 30, 2014, 02:40:15 pm »

Just one more note. I've been playing with the idea of trying to trigger the recovery process from the cloned hard drive. The recovery partition should have the original recovery files that came with the computer on it (not the recovery disks I purchased). I used the Mini XP application on the Hirens disk to access files on the recovery partition, found an application called restore, and double clicked on it. The expect HP restore program started. I'm at the point where I can just click the button and see if it will actually run the restore... shall I go ahead?