please help; windows not bootable

[ubamous3]

please help me; this is the second time i reinstall win2k pro on this disk

it crashed on me and when i reboot, it hangs at the boot from cd screen, and i notice that the irq says n/a instead of a number for
input device
serial bus controller (3 lines of serial bus controller)

it 's a 250g maxtor (with 2 partitions); i hooked it up to another working computer, and i could see the second partition but the first partition looks as if it' s unformatted in windows explorer; i used active undelete and recovered (i believe all or most of it) but i dont know how to proceed from here; i dont have the ERD's for it and the last time i did a chkdsk through recovery console, all the files were gone on that partition

please help me!!

thank u very much

 

[Duracell]

i used active undelete and recovered (i believe all or most of it) but i dont know how to proceed from here;

backup the recovered files to another drive (in the other PC) and go for a complete format (with Maxtor's DOS diagnostic/erasing tool);
don't waste your time with trying to make this previously damaged system/partition bootable;

seems you are a bird of ill omen which i won't let touch my PC;


Greetings from
Duracell

 

[ubamous3]

backup the recovered files to another drive (in the other PC) and go for a complete format (with Maxtor's DOS diagnostic/erasing tool);
don't waste your time with trying to make this previously damaged system/partition bootable;

seems you are a bird of ill omen which i won't let touch my PC;


Greetings from
Duracell

oh duracell, i m crushed!!! i was hoping to be your apprentice n help u test your systems and your clients' systems! now that dream is crushed lol; just kidding, your statement is a mild understatement of what i have been going through with my computer systems at home (i have 6 including 1 as a laptop),and murphy's law,when they dont work, they rebel all at the same time (of course with different problems to make it more pleasurable for me)
at times, i take a positive approach that these problems are good and god's given opportunities for me to learn; if they dont come up, i'd never learn about it but during the process when u r tryng to fix 1 thing, my boss complains about his computer acting up this n that, i just wnt to jump out the balcony - but not before i bring all the pcs down with me, u know

ok, kidding aside (im glad that i can joke about this), i have 2 ideas that i can try but id' love to have you and others experienced geek heroes heheh (from a geek wanna be) give your input whether it's logical or not

1/ / change the irq number for input and serial controller in BIOS mode, not sure if it'd let me do that

2/ try to boot from the install cd, setup OS option, and then i think there's a feature to repair after that (at this point, i have already backed up what i can on another computer so if it's del. everything, it's not much of a loss)

3/ connect it bck to the working computer; format this partition and then copy everything that i have recovered back onto it

4/ like u said, do a fresh format ...yet again! lol; and then someone else sugggest just keep that partition for system files and keep the program files and data files on another partition so that to minimize reloading if the same thing happens

what do u think? please post back so i can start on the right course; thanks very much again

 

[scarecrow]

I can't be sure about the root of your problems, but xperience has teached me that such issues are quite regularly attributed to inadequate power supply units. Plz disconnect any device/PCI card you might not need to do a recovery (even soundcards), and try again.

 

[ubamous3]

ok scarecrow, i 'll try that to see if that will work; cant wait for my case with 600W psu to arrive so i can install it on the other one and then i'll get upgrade the psu on this computer too; currently its' 400W (i think)

 

[ubamous3]

I can't be sure about the root of your problems, but xperience has teached me that such issues are quite regularly attributed to inadequate power supply units. Plz disconnect any device/PCI card you might not need to do a recovery (even soundcards), and try again.

ok, so far i disconnected 1 ide controller (with 2 disks on it) from the ultra ata pci card n it still didnt boot up right, and then i was thinking:
if it's the psu causing the problem, then why does the first partition not show up in window explorer on the working computer? i could recover a lot of it with active uneraser but it wasn't seen in window explorer; so that makes me think that it might be the partition being corrupted somehow (but i dont know the correct tool to recover it)

also, i'll list what it shows on the irq during bootup

PCI BUS # DEVICE # FUNCTION # DEVICE CLASS IRQ
0 8 0 simple comm controller 10
0 9 0 multimedia controller 11
0 9 1 input device NA
0 10 0 mass storage controller 11
0 16 0 serial bus controller NA
0 16 1 serial bus controller NA
0 16 2 serial bus controller NA
0 16 3 serial bus controller NA
0 17 1 IDE controller 14
0 18 0 network controller 10
0 0 0 display controller 10
1 ACPI controller 9
verifying DMI pool data
boot from CD:
press any key to boot from CD:
-------------
plus, on the PCI expansion slots, i think i have the soundcard, ultra ata card, and the modem card;the video is part of the motherboard so i have no agp card

please advise; idont mind following your suggestion, but i just want to make sure that it 's logical since C wasnt seen when i slaved it to another pc

thnks a lot for your time

 

[Duracell]

O.K. ubamous3, sorry for my late response, yesterday i had migraine like hell and won't do anything at my machine;

about #1
assigning an IRQ in BIOS won't change anything as long you install the OS in ACPI mode;

about #2
as i said, after restoring needed data i wouldn't waste my time with trying to repair a previously destroyed OS;

about #4
this is what i would do;
clean your harddisk completely with Maxtor's tools (some will call it "low level format" although such thing is impossible for us end users);
hit the F5 button while starting CD setup and install your OS as Standard-PC; this allows you to assign IRQs manually in BIOS and in Windows;
when you are asked for partitioning and formating, then format only a part of your HDD as system and program partition; leave the rest alone, this is for storing your important data later;
after the system runs fine use Windows Drive Management and create a 2. partition at your HDD; use NTFS and format it as primary volume too; then it's time to move your backup data to this new partition;

splitting OS and programs doesn't make sense, because the programs always store files in the Windows folder and modify the registry; they won't work anymore with a new installed OS;

 

[ubamous3]

thanks duracell; i hope u have recovered from your migraine i have had it n it's not fun

i finally just bit the bullet and reformatted and reinstalled win2k; now, i at least remembered to change some of the system folders (my documents, my pics, temp internet files) to the second partition (D), but i forgot to do that when i reinstalled my apps again; is there a tweaking program to move the program files to another partition afterwards (i doubt it but doesnt hurt to ask) or u can only do it when u install the program initially?

i understand your point about having programs on a sep. partition from the primary partition since if windows communicates with them and if windows is crippled, u prob. hvae to reinstall them again anyway but at least the data and configuration info will be intact if they r on D

btw, do any of u guys think its a good idea to dualboot win2k pro n winxp pro? i had winxp pro on a computer within the LAN before but i coulndnt get it networked rigght so i formatted it and installed win2k ontop of it; the reason i want to try dualboot with xp on my computer is i want to test some programs on xp and learn more about it as well; since it will be on a sep. partition, the only thing i will lose is disk space

 

[Duracell]

thanks duracell; i hope u have recovered from your migraine i have had it n it's not fun

thanks, i'm fine today;

is there a tweaking program to move the program files to another partition afterwards (i doubt it but doesnt hurt to ask) or u can only do it when u install the program initially?

you can change the path at any time (e.g. with the free M$ TweakUI), but this will not effect programs you have already installed; so this means the program files won't be moved; to use the changed path you have to uninstall and reinstall the software yourself;

btw, do any of u guys think its a good idea to dualboot win2k pro n winxp pro?

i do have a dual boot system with W2k (work) and XP (games); i'm using XP's native boot selector and never had problems; only thing you have to pay attention is: don't use Window's file encryption;