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XP won't boot to Safe Mode. Stops on IOMDISK.SYS

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wlfpackr

wlfpackr

IS-IT--Management
May 3, 2003
161
US
Situation:

Computer has XP Pro and was running numerous applications before it hung up. Client shut computer off and now cannot boot into Windows at all. They cannot even boot into Safe Mode. When they try to get into Safe Mode the system always hangs up on IOMDISK.SYS. They do not even have a Iomega drive (I'm assuming that is what this file is for). I'm trying to walk them through this over the phone and so far no luck.

Does anyone have any suggestions other than doing a Repair on Windows as they seem to have misplaced their OS Disk.

Thanks in advance.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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BTW, It will not boot to Windows through any other option as well. Boot Normally, Boot to Last Known Good Configuration, etc.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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After having them obtain another WinXP CD I tried to get the recovery console loaded. The system however hangs just before it gets to the screen to load the recovery console.

Any other suggestions? I'm wondering, can we run the drive in question as a slave on a working computer and run CHKDSK on it from there? Never needed to do anything like this before so I'm not sure what our next step should be.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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download and install the 6 XP boot disks from MS site. Start computer using them and then use the repair option. This sounds like a startup file has corrupted and repairing it using the boot disks might cure it. This is assuming the computer has a floppy disk drive!
 
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Is there machine a laptop? If so see this thread.
Mount an unbootable NTFS drive? !!HELP!! Tough one.
thread779-738178

For details about Boot Disks to get into Recovery Console see this Thread.
Thread779-813327

To check out any RAM problems (with a bootable floppy) go here.
 
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Using the floppies as boot disks yielded the same problem. We have also already ran a hardware/memory test and everything passed. Unplugged all the hardware out that wasn't necessary. Crossed our fingers and swapped out video cards as well. Same thing.

We were able to plug the hard drive into another machine (as a slave) and run some tests on it. Nothing seems out of whack. We can even navigate throughout the drive.

Luckily this is not a critical machine and we have a week to work with it, however, this thing has now become a challenge to everyone here.



There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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It's beginning to sound like a job for the repairer (is it under warranty)?

Did you ever check to see if it would boot from a single floppy XP boot disk?

How to Use System Files to Create a Boot Disk to Guard Against Being Unable to Start Windows XP (Q314079)

Q305595 - HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP

I wonder if the hard drive has become disconnected in some strange way.

Has anyone got a copy of the Knoppix CD to see if that self contained operating system will run from CD on that laptop?



ultimate boot cd ??
thread779-679737
 
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1) First I just want to say: God, I'm glad I went into programming/networking as opposed to trying to support Windows and hardware.

2) Repairers? Like I said earlier this has become personal! lol. Sorry, I don't think I mentioned, but this is a desktop machine. It would not boot from a single boot floppy.

3) This is what I've got now. I can take the hard drive in question and boot it up fine on my computer. My personal hard drive WILL NOT boot on the system in question. Which led me to believe we've got mainboard or cpu problems (I've already swapped out memory).

4) However, first I swapped out IDE cables no fix, tried the hard drive on secondary IDE channel and same thing. Then for kicks I tried to boot with Last Known Good Configuration while on the secondary channel and I got the following:

=========================================
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.

<windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Please reinstall a copy of the above file.
========================================

This is the first time I've seen this message. It used to just hang up when trying to use Last Known..... Should I attempt to reinstall this file? Or just ignore this message all together and go with the notion that it is a mainboard/cpu problem?

Currently I'm running a virus scan on the drive from another computer (which I probably should have done in the beginning), however, that doesn't explain why it would boot on my machine and my drive would not boot on their machine.

Thanks again for all of your help. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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Oh well here is the update. Hooked the hard drive up as a slave and did a virus scan with Norton. Only 8,500+ infected files on the drive. Wish I would have done this sooner!!!

Looks like an FDISK is in order here. Thanks linney for all of your help. I'm still not sure however, why this drive was able to boot up on my system with no problems and mine was unable to boot on theirs. Can a virus affect BIOS? If so how do u clear it out? Just pull the jumper?

There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that do not.
 
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Removing the Cmos battery is one way of resetting it.

You should always consult the motherboard manual when resetting the BIOS - just to make sure that you are changing the correct jumper.

A quote from somewhere on the web.....

"How to reset CMOS.

Let's say that you've entered an incorrect BIOS setting and your system won't load as a result. Most of the time, resetting the BIOS back to its default configuration will cure the problem. The settings are stored in a piece of memory on the motherboard called the CMOS. By changing the "clear CMOS" jumper on the motherboard, the problem will be solved as it restores the BIOS back to a default state that will allow your computer to boot.

Somewhere on the board close to the bios battery (round and silver, looks like a watch battery) are a bank of 3 pins with a jumper on 2 of them. This is the CMOS jumper.

REMEMBER: Turn the power off from your system before resetting CMOS. Pull your power cable out of the power supply and wait for 30 seconds for residual static to discharge.

Whichever pins they are on, they are pins 1 and 2 with 2 always being the centre pin. To reset CMOS, take the jumper off pins 1 + 2 and place it on pins 2 + 3. Leave for 5 seconds and replace the jumper back on to where it was. The system will now boot up again but don't forget that all the BIOS settings will have been reset - including the date and time!

Enter BIOS by pressing delete or F2 (depends on your BIOS) and reset all the settings, apart from the one that caused it not to boot obviously.

You should always consult the motherboard manual when resetting the BIOS - just to make sure that you are changing the correct jumper."

More help here.







 
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