Win XP boot from CD problem

[daklander]

The problem is, it won't so I'm turning to the guys who can most likely help.

It's been quite awhile since I've used WinXP and have a PC I want go get going again. There's apparently an issue with the hard drive partition Windows is on since the pc froze up when trying to boot adn there are errors that show up if I try to boot to safe mode, which I cannot boot to due to those errors. I even went so far as getting to the recovery partition and reinstalled the OS, complete with format and still have a problem that leads me to believe there's a hard drive problem. (There is no oem CD, the install/recovery system is on a separate partition on the hard drive.

I want to boot from CD and try repair the hard drive or ghost the recovery partition to another hard drive but the computer will not try booting from CD.

I know I had an issue similar to this some years ago but old timers disease has stuck on this problem and I cannot remember what I did to get that computer to finally see and boot from the CD. Bios was set right on that one as well.

The computer is an older Compaq Presario with an AMD 2400 running 756 MB ram.

[Beck]

The Compaq Presario

[daklander]

The Compaq Presario

[spokenward]

Here's a thought. Download the SysrescueCD.

 

Burn the iso or follow the instructions to mount it on a USB flash drive

 

Boot from the sysrescueCD. There is a free boot manager, 'GAG' that you can run from the prompt. (Other options live in the F2-F7 menus). Point gag at the partition where the windows OS lives. If that works you can install GAG or run it as needed. If that doesn't work you have 'testdisk' and everything else on the CD to throw at it. good luck!

[daklander]

 

Here's a thought. Download the SysrescueCD . Burn the iso or follow the instructions to mount it on a USB flash drive Boot from the sysrescueCD. There is a free boot manager, 'GAG' that you can run from the prompt. (Other options live in the F2-F7 menus). Point gag at the partition where the windows OS lives. If that works you can install GAG or run it as needed. If that doesn't work you have 'testdisk' and everything else on the CD to throw at it. good luck!

 

 

Thanks.

I have systescueCD.

I'll give that a shot loading it on a usb stick as well but the system does not check for any other boot means other than HD C. It goes there so quickly the first thing that shows on the monitor is windows loading. To get to the boot options screen to try safe, or to get to the restore system screen I had to continually hit F1 or F10, depending on which I wanted. There was no splash screen and the system is set to do a precheck and is probably not doing that either.

[deanmass]

Try turning off ALL boot options except the CDROM. If that does not work, do the same, except keep the FLOPPY option on and boot from it.

 

Swap your IDE cables if you can. Try the 2nd IDE controller if you can, or the opposite controller of whatever the CDROM is trying to boot from ( usually there is a primary and secondary IDE controller.)

 

If it is SATA for some reason, do the same ( swap cables, swap controller, and let the boot settings follow ONLY the device you want it to hit.)

[daklander]

 

Try turning off ALL boot options except the CDROM. If that does not work, do the same, except keep the FLOPPY option on and boot from it. Swap your IDE cables if you can. Try the 2nd IDE controller if you can, or the opposite controller of whatever the CDROM is trying to boot from ( usually there is a primary and secondary IDE controller.) If it is SATA for some reason, do the same ( swap cables, swap controller, and let the boot settings follow ONLY the device you want it to hit.)

 

Thanks Deanmass.

Swapping the IDE cables got the CD to boot so I was able to boot into Puppy. I'll boot to one of the disk managers tomorrow and see where we go. Once that's all accomplished I'll swap things back and see what happens.

[WRGKMC]

Very important note.

 

If the drive was from a dual drive system, Be sure to set the jumper for MASTER or Master Without Slave.

 

The darn install disk will keep looping in circles going through formatting and all but never install properly if you dont.

 

I have multiple disk systems that littel number gets me every time. You think its installing but it never reboots to the installed OS

[daklander]

 

Very important note. If the drive was from a dual drive system, Be sure to set the jumper for MASTER or Master Without Slave. The darn install disk will keep looping in circles going through formatting and all but never install properly if you dont. I have multiple disk systems that littel number gets me every time. You think its installing but it never reboots to the installed OS

 

 

Yup, jumpers are/were set correctly and drives connected in the correct order.

[daklander]

Still working on the computer, as I have time.

 

There are a whole slew of bad sectors. I didn't know they'd go bad while in storage.

Gotta set up another hard drive with an install partition and try that next.

 

Thanks again for the assistance so far guys. I appreciate it.

[Jon Doe]

 

Still working on the computer, as I have time. There are a whole slew of bad sectors. I didn't know they'd go bad while in storage. Gotta set up another hard drive with an install partition and try that next. Thanks again for the assistance so far guys. I appreciate it.

 

 

if you can boot to puppy, dd the recovery partition to a different drive for safekeeping.

 

dd bs=4k if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/sdb1/save/recovery-partition.dd conv=notrunc

 

That would copy the recovery partition to a file called "recovery-partition.dd" in the "save" directory of the mounted "sdb1" partition of your spare drive.

[Anderton]

Hey John Doe - how come you know so much about PCs?!? I wish I had your knowledge, but I assume it didn't come from a book

[daklander]

 

if you can boot to puppy, dd the recovery partition to a different drive for safekeeping. dd bs=4k if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/sdb1/save/recovery-partition.dd conv=notrunc That would copy the recovery partition to a file called "recovery-partition.dd" in the "save" directory of the mounted "sdb1" partition of your spare drive.

 

 

 

Thanks Jon Doe, I've been able to boot from a CD since flip flopping the ide connections and used Puppy to resize the NTFS partition that was in the first partition on another drive, resizing from the beginning. I then created a new FAT32 partition the same size and named the same as the original recovery partition. With that done and rebooting, hitting F10 to start the recovery process did not work so I used G4L that's on the PMagic Live CD to clone the recovery partition to a recovery partition on a different HD. Working with that hard drive and hitting F10 will not start the recovery process either so there's still something going on that I don't know about.

Still fighting it as I have time but if you have any ideas or suggestions I'll certainly give them a shot.

[Jon Doe]

 

Thanks Jon Doe, I've been able to boot from a CD since flip flopping the ide connections and used Puppy to resize the NTFS partition that was in the first partition on another drive, resizing from the beginning. I then created a new FAT32 partition the same size and named the same as the original recovery partition. With that done and rebooting, hitting F10 to start the recovery process did not work so I used G4L that's on the PMagic Live CD to clone the recovery partition to a recovery partition on a different HD. Working with that hard drive and hitting F10 will not start the recovery process either so there's still something going on that I don't know about. Still fighting it as I have time but if you have any ideas or suggestions I'll certainly give them a shot.

 

 

take a look at the original partition with "gparted" in puppy. make sure it winds up in the same place on the new drive. I'm pretty sure the recovery partition needs to be the first.

 

If it were me, I would do the whole thing from puppy because better tools.

 

I would run gparted and remove all partitions from the new drive, then use "dd" to copy the previously saved partition back to the cleaned drive. It will the be the first partition on the disk and you can test for f10.

 

Save the partition as I described in the above post, then reverse the command to copy the file to the new disk. Here's a convenient how-to: http://www.backuphowto.info/linux-backup-hard-disk-clone-dd

 

How big is the partition? will it fit on a thumbdrive?

[Jon Doe]

Hey John Doe - how come you know so much about PCs?!? I wish I had your knowledge, but I assume it didn't come from a book

 

It's my profession, Craig.