Cannot repair Windows 2000

[drkestrel]

My PC at home running Win2K has completely crashed.

Whilst configuring rules on Norton Personal Firewall 2003 which I installed a week ago, my machine reboots itself, and when it gets to the Starting Windows black screen with progress bar down the bottom, it fails with the following error:

Disk I/O Error: Status=000010000
For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for windows 2000 press F8. Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\winnt\ystem32\config\system
You can repair this file by starting windows 2000 with the origination floppy or CD rom and press R to repair....

Starting up in all of the safe mode, Last Known Config gives the same error, but a little more info:

mult(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt\system32\config\system
DISK I/O Error: Status=000010000
mult(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt\system32\config\system.alt
DISK I/O Error: Status=000010000


I tried using the (Manual) Repair option using the windows 2000 CD Rom, but it can't detect my windows 2000.

I also Tried Recovery Console, but all it gives is

Windows 2000(TM) REcovery Console

The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality

Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer

Doesn't respond to keyboard events, etc.(i.e. typing EXIT has no reponse). I had to press the restart button from my PC to restart. No Win2K paritions/drives listed

My partitions are set up as follows:
Primary Paritition
c:\ DOS FAT (Not affected)
Extended Partitions below:
d:\ WINNT NTFS
e:\ SWAP file NTFS
f:\ Application files NTFS
g:\ FAT32 Blank
h:\ FAT32 Blank



Firstly
1) Could I in anyway repair the file (Noting it can't fit in a single floppy disk, it's 2.9MB)
2) I have a Partition Magic 6.0 Boot Disk, according to it, by D: and f:\ drive have 0MB free space (I am surprised if even my f:\ is full) and worse still doing a check for errors returns a Critical CRC Error 45!! Partition Magic could not fix it (the fix button is disabled)
3) If I have to reinstall Windows 2000, what would be the simplest way for me to back up data under d:\documents and settings\ and some files I had in my f:\ (Noting that they are NTFS). Could I install a brand new minimum Windows 2000 installation on my g:\ drive (in which case would I get a new Win2K item in my boot menu?? At present, I have DOS and Windows2000 already). Then leave f:\ alone, copy the documents and settings stuff on d:\ to H:\ trash g: and d: and install Win2K on d: (would I still have 2 Windows 2000 on my boot menu at this stage?). Would NTFS DOS

http://www.ntfs.com/products.htm

be any good at copying lots of files with long file names from d:\ to h:\ maintaining directory structure? I thought there used to be a version of NTFS DOS that lets you write to a NTFS Partition? Is that still available? Can't find it on google. Just wondering whether I could copy the system and system.alt file back to d:\winnt\system32\config

 

[Swimpy]

Try reinstalling a new windows 2k installation on the primary partition and back up all files on all pertitions and repartition your drives.
An crc error is quite a severe error.

Swimpy

 

[Swimpy]

Try reinstalling a new windows 2k installation on the primary partition and back up all files on all partitions and repartition your drives.
An crc error is quite a severe error.

Swimpy

 

[drkestrel]

My Primary partition is my c:\ DOS Partition, which is a mere 10MB partition.

I can't resize my d: or f: (because of the CRC error). I could delete it and reformat it, but I would lose my data if I do that!

Could I install Win2K on g: (temporarily) to allow me to copy d:\document and settings to h:\ before trashing g:\ and d:\ and reinstalling win2K on d:\ ?

 

[wolluf]

You could install 2k on another partition temporarily (or even in the same partition - use a different system folder, ie, not \winnt. This is known as parallel installation, often sugested for data recovery.

You could also try a repair reinstall - if install process recognises your 2k installation. For this, boot from 2k CD, choose new install (NOT repair options). It will then look for existing installations & if it finds any, offer to repair (type R). If this happens, accept the repair. Otherwise quit the install (or install your alternative version elsewhere). Repair should leave apps, data & settings intact, but will lose windows updates.

On the recovery console - how long did you wait at the screen you detail above. It can take a while for it to find the installation(s) and prompt user to select one.

 

[drkestrel]

I now managed to use the "Recovery Console". I would rather not install Win2K in spare partition, because I don't think doing so would leave me with enough free space to back up data prior to trashing d:\ and f:\ for reinstallation.

Problems though
1) I did a chkdsk /r /p d:, after reboot, I went further than last time, but still complained a file under \winnt\system32\config is corrupted. What could I do?

2) I consider "replacing" the corrupted files but
2.1) How could I use the Recovery Console 'expand' command to extract files from the Win2K CD?? How could I access my CD ROM from the Recovery console
2.2) typing cd winnt results in Access is Denied error. When Recovery Console starts up, it didn't ask me for my Administrator password. How could I force it to accept one?

 

[drkestrel]

Btw, chkdsk d: /r /p does NOT found any Bad Sector, even though it did appear to recover \winnt\system32\config\system and \winnt\system32\config\system.alt

Confused what is going wrong!

 

[drkestrel]

For same reason, when booting up it's complaining \WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMced is missing or corrupt now?

This file isn't even on a normal Win2K Built. I checked using Recovery Console both SYSTEM and SYSTEM.ALT are present.

IF my system proves to be unrecoverable, would installing Windows NT4 on my spare partition by good enough for data recovery purposes (NT4 is preferable because it takes <400MB, whereas Win2K takes >1GB)

 

[wolluf]

drkestrel - NT4 should be fine for data recovery, as it can access the NTFS filestore (and in fact can install in c. 100MB). You asked earlier

Have you tried the repair reinstall I mentioned earlier?

The type of errors you are getting are often caused by hardware faults - I know problem started with Norton Personal Firewall - but did you have any issues prior to that?

The fact that Recovery Console isn't asking for a password is odd - perhaps the corruption in the registry files is causing that (presume you do have a password on Administrator user..). btw, You should be able to manipulate files/folders in \winnt in Recovery console (eg, back up \WINNT\system32\config\system and replace it with system.alt or \WINNT\repair\RegBack\system - if you've backed up registry, or \WINNT\repair\system - which is copy of original when first installed - this one probably no good)

 

[drkestrel]

I have had no problems with my PC whatsoever prior to this.

I do have an Administrator password for Windows 2000, and fortunately on the second pass of CHKDSK, I did manage to get into \winnt\system32\config and I could see the SYSTEM and SYSTEM.ALT file. No clues what SYSTEMced is.

Quite strangely, CHKDSK D: /R /P did NOT report any bad sectors or anything unusual, except that the CHKDSK from REcovery Console does seem to take much longer than the CHKDSK invoked from Windows 2000 (which get run when on next restarts). I would be extremely disappointed and surpsied if Norton Firewall messed up my OS/HDD. Btw, CHKDSK does report some freespace (100MB +) on my D:\ despite Partition MAgic 6.0 thinking that I have no unused space.

Not too sure what the problem is although it would be preferable to avoid re-installing everything! It would be nice if there are shareware/freeware that allows me to burn CDRW from the Recovery Console .

I wonder whether the CHKDSK from Recovery Manager is any different from Windows 2000's or WinNT4's.

 

[wolluf]

Recovery console's chkdsk is different - it has less options, but still fully functional.

http://jayroos.com/tech/tips.php?ID=8

- has some detail about SYSTEMced errors - might be useful.

I keep saying it - but what about repair reinstall (should leave data, apps, settings intact, loses windows updates) - described in my first post in this thread?

PS. This forum (and others) have many posts which begin, I've just installed Norton blah blah and now my machine won't boot.... (or similar) - so I tend to avoid using their software (though I do use Ghost).

 

[drkestrel]

Windows2000 set up won't let me do a manual repair without a emergency disk!!

wolluf, your link on SYSTEMced is useful. Following the first steps, at least I get Windows 2000 to get pass all the progress bar in the black screen, progressed to the more colourful Windows 2000 screen. It did a CHKDSK on my f:\ and found 30KB of bad sector and then after reboot and the colourful starting Win2K screen shown again suddently a blue screen is shown for 0.5 second and the PC reboots!

The blue screen was too quick for me to catch

but when I go into Recovery Console again, disabling literally all Services except those appears to do with Logica Disk Manager, IDE, Hard disk drivers, etc. I get a blue screen saying
STOP.......
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
....
***Address......ntoskrnl.exe

What could I do (to boot up Win2K) to recover data.