Topic: again already - heeeeelllpppp

[Michelle]

Okay ......... So I got it working fine from the cd before.

Now guess what,  I'd just signed up for live streaming on big brother, all was fine.  8)

Then I thought I'd change my skin to one I'd downloaded from microsoft site and it all went pear shaped, the writing was in black so all I could see was icons  I couldn't get rid of it - and I couldn't change it cos I couldn't see what I was doing.   So ........... I shut down.........

That was the last time I saw my desktop ..........

It won't start up now, it looks fine and then.....  it gets as far as the XP Screen where its just gonna put the users up, and stops!!

I've tried starting it in safe mode it stops at same place

I tried safe mode with dos and i just get a black screen that says safe mode but I can't do a thing

I've tried starting it with last known configurations and it won't go as far as the xp screen.

And the repair disc will only reinstall - I looked at the mesh (spit) website and it says to repair it, act like you are doing a new install, but on the computer it doesn't look the same as the screenshots and I think I'm going to lose everything I have on there, (it says i will) But it does look like my only option.................

Unless anyone else has any idea's plleeeease ?

[joudi]

Well Michelle,

If the new install is the only option which you have, and if you have important things on your HDD, you may remove that HDD and install it in another PC as a slave to get out of it the files which you like to keep.

I did that to a friend of mine; who copied his files to CD's on my pc, after that he wiped his HDD.

[Camstop]

Shell you really need to partition your hard drive there.


When you come to format...


Make your first partition around 15GB and split the rest into either one or two other partitions.


You put windows on the first one and save all your things on your other partitions and that way when windows freaks up you just format C and all your things are still safe on your other partitions.


It works a treat  

[sam]

can you not use the windows repair feature to fix it? I am sure sandra will know more about that than me - I was shocked to find it existed the other week! :-)

[Sandra]

Weve been trying to sort it on messenger for the last hour or so  

Shes trying a repair overitself now but doesnt seem to be getting the normal options so I think its either because she only has a restore cd or the recovery console needs installing first, which shes now trying to do  

[Sandra]

Are you meaning the sfc /scannow command Sam or the repair console ?

We cant run the sfc until its in ful windows, we have tried chkdsk and chkdsk /p from the command prompt but although chkdsk /p found some errors it didnt say it fixed them.

I thought that dos had a regfix or fixreg command but it doesnt appear to be able in XP  

[sam]

i was thinking of the sfc at first but then i remembered that it needed to be in windows (i was shocked i remembered that since i dont do much with windows these days).

I was actually referring the the repair console, seems odd that you get a different console. Any way you can make a disc to run the repair console off a boot disc without using the full windows disc? i dont know if this: [Microsoft Support]  is any help - at the bottom is some links relating to the reapir console.

[Michelle]

Its all very strange!!  the repair console doesn't give the correction options!


We are trying CHKDSK /r now ........ and its taking for ever so thats a good sign lol


sandra found something on how to restore from a prompt but it didn't work on the repair prompt.

[sam]

umm it is very strange, at least it is interesting (and for sandra more than big brother, maybe it was a sign!)

[Sandra]

The MS link you gave earlier Sam in itself wasnt really applicable in Michelles case but interestingly eventually it led me to this :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449/

I didnt think it was possible but it appears that you can run System Restore from the Safe Mode Command Prompt, but in Michelles case this didnt help  

Did it actually bring the restore bit up Michelle but failed to restore to an earlier point that worked or what happened ?

I dont think that it would work from a normal boot floppy which is a pity as that would solve a lot of peoples problems I bet  

[sam]

i didnt know if it would be useful, but at least it lead you somewhere...

bloody microsoft! :-) actually i think michelle should blame bigbrother... :-)

[sam]

Off old board:

Michelle:

The command for the %systemroot% wasn't recognized - it said see help for a list of commands and in there it says SYSTEMROOT so I tried it without the % and it does nothing!  I tried it systemroot\system32 etc and its not recognized.

That scan took all night - it was only on 71% done when I went to bed at 1am. But as you have gathered its still the same.  

[sam]

Off old board:
(after the database cutoff)

Sandra:

It would need the % as thats part of the information it needs for which action to take within the systemroot command Michelle.
It posibly took so long to scan your drive because its 320 gig as a single partition, when its in dos mode it doesnt run as fast as it would in windows and 320 gig is a lot of space to scan.

Are you still not getting the option of R for the recovery console when you try to reinstall ?

[Simon]

All we need to do now, is find Michelle!  

[Michelle]

ahh ....... there they are - I wondered what happened to my message!


oooh this is all blue  


To answer your question - No I still don't get the R option    That is very very odd.

I'm sure there's something that can be done on that command prompt bit, but I just can't understand it all!

Oh well I'll just have to re install - won't I ? ? ?