xpPro CRASH...and <R>ecover or Restore does not help. 1

[nat101]

My xpPro system wouldn't boot due to certain file missing. Seems like a virus caused it. I tried the following:
A) 1. Boot from xpPro CD, choose recover.
2. It does not agree on the password, so possibly the virus took care of that too.
3. I wish recover would allow an admin equivalent user...
Anyhow, there are better options since I DO have a backup, so...

B) 1. Boot from CD, choose to install a new setup on another partition. The old crashed \windows is on c:, the new on E:\.
2. That (sort of)works, and I can connect to another xpPro machine on the lan, which should be great because that machine has a recent back of this, backed up via the included backup program.
3. I choose to restore the STATE of my machine, including all users documents.
4. The restore goes well, and reboot.
5. I get a fuzzy video login (with the recovered usernames) but the machine is LOCKED and frozen. No keyboard (even caps or numlock toggle) or mouse movement, and there is a mouse cursor frozen in the middle.
6. I try rebooting in either safe or vga mode, with the same result.

Now what?
PS. It's been about 30 hours since my crash, and have tried numerous variations of the above methods. I am about to go nuts.

Thank you for helping.
-nat

 

[linney]

What is the current state of your machine? Has your attempt to restore from backup overwritten what was your original C drive installation of XP. Are we talking about a full ASR or just a few files from a NTbackup that you have tried to restore?

How is the installation of XP on E drive, are there any problems with that.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

 

[nat101]

Currently I am booted off a fresh xp install off the E: drive and am able to run new stuff off the Start menu, but my desktop is clean. I mean not a single icon was installed on the desktop. But I didn't care because I can restore.
Although I can explore my c: drive, there are numerous directories it won't allow due to security from that install.

My restore from backup was very specific for mydocuments and settings (and subfolders), along with the registry "state" of the machine. Yes, I did overwrite those. (I tried restore with/without security info.)

thanks
-nat

 

[nat101]

Oh, and about the in-place upgrade would be great, but it warns that it would wipe out all settings etc, in effect where I am at now (on e, but had I done that on C:, in-place, the setup warns that it would leave me with a fresh Windows, so I backed off.

-nat

 

[linney]

Two things apply here. A repair (reinstall) installation as mentioned in (Q315341) works by repairing windows by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched. As far as settings are concerned this would only be a problem if you are an OEM setup (preinstalled at purchase) AND don't have SP1 installed.

312369 - You May Lose Data or Program Settings After Reinstalling, Repairing, or Upgrading Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;312369&FR=1

Secondly to overcome the security permission problems try this.

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP (Q308421)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp

 

[nat101]

Well, well. I do have an oem (Dell) setup!
I might need a combination of the two articles you posted.
Thank you much. Shall keep you posted (I hope. Unless I faint..)

-nat

 

[nat101]

Can I ask you this. I want to try to do that in-place upgrade on C: but I dont want to lose my days work on e:. (I found that undo_gui.txt file on c:.)
If I go ahead and re-install on c:, what will Windows do at boot, since both e: and c: will have valid Windows installs?

Then, on c:\, I plan to restore, and hope that I want have a gui-related 'hang' at reboot.

-nat
PS. Although, I have the original CD's for most of my apps, it would be a very painful re-install, for each, ensuring it finds the previous data-store, not overwriting, etc.

 

[linney]

The repair will ask you which installation to repair and you can then choose C. In any case backup anything valuable on E, and C if you can access that from E.

 

[nat101]

Update on situation.
A knowledge base article is aware of the problem that for oem systems, Recover will not know the admin password, due to a different version of an encrytion algorithm. Well, well. I got around that. Now it lets me in to c:\windows (via recover) and after manually editing boot.ini I finally have it prompting me as to where I should boot from. BUT! I am [seemingly]back to square 1, as it tells me that it cant boot Windows from there because HAL.DLL (in System32)is corrupt or missing. So I rebooted under E:, recopied the file (albeit it seemed the same) but still the same error.

Also, I discovered, that to get the "in-place" setup option, I have to run Winnt32.exe off the cd, BUT, *that* only knows about the E: install and not the C: install.

I don't think I'll buy a machine with xp pre-installed again. There are too many aberrations due to "oem versions".

Linux is starting to look better and better. Anyhow...

Your help is most appreciated, and I better get some sleep!
-nat

 

[nat101]

It looks like I have a virus. Because something is changing the timestamp of my hal.dll file! (I extracted it from hal.dl_).

 

[linney]

XP Pro has hal.dll probs or loses NTLDR after 3rd HDD added...
thread779-414928


How to Force a Hardware Abstraction Layer During an Upgrade or New Installation of Windows XP (Q299340)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q299/3/40.asp

How to Troubleshoot Windows 2000 Hardware Abstraction Layer Issues (Q237556)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q237/5/56.asp

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

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q314/0/79.asp

 

[nat101]

One thing I really learned from this mishap is how to search MS Knowledge base<g>. As such, bar 1, I had tried everything else. This thing simply wont work.
I give up...um on xp.

Thank you all
-nat
ps. The thing that really freaks me out is that I do have backups, which are supposed to restore STATE. My foot.

 

[linney]

The following two paragraphs are quoted from -

http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?IssueID=62&ArticleID=3952

&quot;NTLDR clears the screen and prints its version information: OSLOADER V4.0. The first two files that NTLDR loads make up NT's core: ntoskrnl.exe and hal.dll. Both files are located in the <winnt>\system32 directory. Ntoskrnl.exe contains the Kernel and Executive subsystems (e.g., Memory Manager, Cache Manager, Object Manager), and hal.dll contains code that interfaces NT to the computer hardware. Hardware abstraction layers (HALs) can provide interfaces to proprietary hardware, so Microsoft makes it possible for OEMs to supply custom HAL files. If NTLDR fails to load either of these files, it prints the message Windows NT could not start because the following file was missing or corrupt, followed by the name of the file.

Now the user has the option to select the Last Known Good configuration by pressing the spacebar. After a successful boot completes, NT makes a copy of the Registry tree that contains static and dynamic system and driver configuration information, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet, and marks it as the Last Known Good configuration. Because device drivers load based on information under the Services Registry key, this key is especially crucial. If a driver installs and at the next reboot prevents the system from starting, when the user selects the Last Known Good configuration, NT reverts to using the copy of the Registry tree that existed before the driver installed. Because the good copy does not include commands to load the driver, a boot using that copy will likely succeed.&quot;

315222 - A Description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315222&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

From this site -

BOOTIT NG

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/help.html#qnx

&quot;If the BOOT.INI file does not point to the correct boot entry for Windows XP, you will get an error stating that Hal.Dll is missing . Simply correct the partition(x) entry in the BOOT.INI file or reorder the partitions in the MBR Details section of the boot item configuration.&quot;

A lot of info and ideas to be found there.

 

[bcastner]

From Recovery Console:

Bootcfg /Rebuild
(Point at the proper installation)

fixboot c:

 

[nat101]

In my crash-course on xp booting in the past couple of days I have that covered, most of it. (By the way, please excuse my delayed comeback since I was busy setting-up and re-setting up.)
1. When I tried &quot;the last known good install&quot;, I had the same results. That was one of the first things I tried.
2. Bootcfg /rebuild or /scan or /list did NOT see my c:\windows, only the new e:\Windows. Setup did see c:\windows. So did recover.
3. If I manually edited the boot ini file, it did try loading from c:\windows, but was back to the hal.dll error, regardless of which hal file I put into system32.
3b. I also tried booting of a floppy, with the same results.
4. I do not know what fixboot c: is, and when to try it.

Having said that. This is the latest. I have re-installed Windows on c: and allowed it to delete the old Windows and start from scratch because I DO HAVE A BACKUP! This is my last angle of getting my old desktop/installed programs back. My problem of not getting in after the restore, seems miniscule compared to the other junk.
And here is the problem. Upon re-boot after STATE restore, the gui login comes on except it freezes. Why do I say thats positive? Because the list of users on the screen is correct according to my original system. So it sounds like a minor thing which I as of yet have NOT figured out. All the simple things, I tried. Safe mode, vga mode, etc.
Problem is its kinda tough getting here in the middle of that setup-restore-debug cycle.
So, before I try to restore again, any pointers please?
I am STILL open to ideas!
TA
-nat

 

[linney]

Did you ever run ChkDsk from recovery console to check C for errors.

Can you use this and &quot;ferry&quot; user profiles between C and E installations and even back to C after a clean install of XP there?

811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[nat101]

Even though the idea of copying a profile was great, and is good info, it didn't help me. Although it seemed like it copied ok, when I try to run most of the apps, they complain about various critical problems which usually requires a re-install of the app.

Re chdsk, I ran it multiple times in the course of the week, with and without the /r option. It found everything ok.

It seems like I will re-install my apps from scratch.

Have a nice weekend, and thanks again.
-nat

 

[bcastner]

Quote:
&quot;2. Bootcfg /rebuild or /scan or /list did NOT see my c:\windows, only the new e:\Windows. Setup did see c:\windows. So did recover.&quot;

I was pretty much convinced at this point that recovery of your installed applications was very unlikely.

Kudos to linney for fighting the brave fight.

 

[jurgen36]

Next time round back up with Winresquexp, this little gem works perfect every time. It even makes notes of the open files and backs them up on reboot. You can use any blank drive as your new drive and boot up with a dos diskette which the program makes. It then reinstalls the files and system files to the new drive. It does not even matter if you changed the MOB etc. It overcomes the limitations of normal backups. Regards

Jurgen

 

[nat101]

So...we are spending days of re-installing apps, and mating em with the old data, etc. what fun!<sic>
Once I am back on, I will try to get ALL my important apps java based, and have one partition fat32, so that I can boot xp or Linux and still have my apps.

As far as *Winresquexp*, Google does not know what this is.

Thank you all again.
-nat