Windows XP crash HELP!

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mosquitocontrol

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I know there is someone out in home brew land who can help me since you guys seem to have an answer to any problem. My fiancee’s computer has just crapped out on him. He is a musician and may have just lost his last years work. Anyway, this is what is happening…

It will not boot regularly or in safe mode. When you try it comes up with an error saying “load needed DLLs for kernel”. He has tried booting using the windows CD, but the option to repair the installation is not there. Have tried performing a manual restore of the Windows XP registry ad well as trying to fix the boot files.

Not sure what else can be done. In order to save the files we are thinking of getting another hard drive to install a fresh copy of windows and use the old hard drive as a secondary. Not sure if that will work or not.

Any ideas?
 
Have you ever heard of BartPE?

Google it...Its a simple way of running windows directly from a bootable CD. Try booting into BartPE and back up any important information to an external HDD first. All BartPE builds that I have used come with an explorer type program. Plug in a USB HDD and boot the computer up using the BartPE CD. Once in the BartPE OS, you can explore the files on the original HDD without actually booting into it. (i.e. copy and paste any vital information before attempting any further repair.) After you are satisfied with the back-up... who cares if you accidentally wipe the drive.:)

If you aren't confident with your OS install abilities I wouldn't go swapping out drives just yet. Try the USB HDD option first. Good Luck!
 
Alternative bartpe, use Ubuntu Live CD, copy stuff to external hard drive.

There are tons of guide on using Ubuntu to recover files.

Another option is to buy a new hard drive and a usb converter for the old hard drive, that way the old one isn't touched except to get stuff off of it, and then you have a shiny new probably bigger hard drive.
 
Are you sure the repair option is not there? You need to choose SETUP Windows, then it will give you the option to repair. I.e., the first time you get to choose, the repair option is not there (Setup, Recovery Console, and one other thing is there - choose setup).

If you really can't seem to get windows to repair it, the next best option is probably to just install Windows on a new drive, then move your files over.
 
I will echo what everyone is saying, boot off a disc, either options listed are a good suggestion.

Also I can't stress this enough. Once you have salvaged and rebuilt. Be sure to use a back up tool and image on a regular basis to a backup drive either on the PC or networked, or USB. Back Up Back Up Back Up! If HWMBO's work is that important, and I assume it is, this is the best way to have piece of mind.

There are tons of free options out there. I use http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

Good luck.
 
Take it to a mac store, buy a mac and have the people there work on it/transfer the old data. Never worry about having problems again...
 
FIRST! Backup your data! Use a second hard drive and a live CD, either Barts (more likel windows) or Linux Live CD. Or just place the hard drive in another computer and read it using that machine.

THEN try to repair. If you boot off the windows disk, it will want to start the setup program. Go ahead and do that. At a certain point it will say that it's looking for previous installations. When it finds the previous installation, it "should" as you if you want to push "R" to repair this installation instead of installing fresh.

At any rate, if you end up installing fresh, just make sure you select the option to re-install, and not install a new OS. And do NOT FORMAT THE DRIVE!! If you perform a reinstall it will replace the OS with a new copy, while leaving the data files there (as long as they are located outside of any windows folders, which is not certain, which is why I recommend doing a repair only if possible...)

At any rate, get that data onto a second storage device ASAP. After that you can work on recovering the OS any which way you feel like with no worries.
 
All of this couldn't come at a worst time as I need to prepare a presentation for an interview for tomorrow morning. And if I don't get this job there's not many other prospects out there. This is just one big distraction/frustration and taking our 2nd computer out of commission.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, going to try booting with the Bart in order to recover the data. If that fails I've taken apart an old external with hopes of putting the harddrive in there and trying to recover that way. The reason we didn't have a backup is because the external failed a few months ago. It seems you're lucky if you can get those pieces of crap to last more then a year or two.

Is it just me or are internal hard drives more reliable and last longer then externals? The new one I just ordered for back up will be our 5th external hard drive in about 7 years which just seems obscene. Would I be better off getting a large internal as a backup and put it in the secondary bay of the desktop? Any recommendations on automatic backup programs too?

Thanks again for your help.
 
I use Mozy for online backups, its free for a couple of gigs, flat fee after that for unlimited.

As far as the external drives sucking...they usually put really cheap drives in them.

I use one of the RAID externals for backups, that way if one of the drives in them dies, its not gone.
 
I use Mozy for online backups, its free for a couple of gigs, flat fee after that for unlimited.

A definite second to Mozy. 2GB is free then it is $60/yr for unlimited. I have been using it for about 2 years now using the unlimited option. The very first backup will take a long time depending on how much data you have. Subsequent backups go much quicker.
 
Yeah most would t work for me. About 90% of the stuff I would backup is not necessarily obtainable in a fair way.

Big props to Bart pe. Was able to get back all the data. Big
relief there. Couldn't get windows to repair so now spending
the weekend reinstalling and setting up music programs and presets etc. At least that gives me plenty of
time to brew

I can't thank you guys enough. You seem to have the solution to any Problem imaginable.
 
I bought one of these $20 trays and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made. It allows you to slide a standard SATA drive into your computer, back up to it, then remove it. I have a HD for digital pics, another for home video, another for work backup, etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371028


I also back up to two online RAID-5 NAS's. Many terabytes there, but I like to have offline storage, too.
 
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