Guest Tenshodoman Posted July 17, 2007 Posted July 17, 2007 Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system up now. Cheers Rod Gayford
Guest Plato Posted July 17, 2007 Posted July 17, 2007 Re: Repair Install =?Utf-8?B?VGVuc2hvZG9tYW4=?= wrote: > > Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and > got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File > ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and > find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system > up now. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315341 -- http://www.bootdisk.com/
Guest David B, SWE Posted July 17, 2007 Posted July 17, 2007 Re: Repair Install Complaints in newsgroups, etc., about this "missing asms file" issue go back about five years. I personally have encountered the error at least three times in as many years. Microsoft's Knowledge Base article Q311755 -- the one that MVPs usually refer XP users to when they respond to this complaint -- is irrelevant and useless. The KB article referenced by "Plato" (315341) in this thread does not appear to be very helpful either -- at least it does not directly refer to the error message you received. I believe that there is now, or has been, a bug in the Windows XP setup CD. Thus far, there is no helpful KB article about this bug and no workaround. For any MVP or user who may be reading this, I can summarize briefly 1) what leads up to this Windows XP setup disk error; 2) how to reproduce the "missing asms file" bug on the XP setup CD; 3) why the KB article Q31175 is unhelpful. 1. A user elects this "repair" option in the XP Setup only after all other efforts to recover have failed. I got to this do-or-die place a while back by exporting and then deleting 10 registry keys that all pertained (I thought) to an application that didn't properly uninstall itself. I had tried "Last Known Good Configuration", Safe Boot and its variants, and so I knew I could not boot to Safe mode; I had tried "Don't reboot after startup failure" (or whatever the wording is, toward the bottom of the list. Without Safe Mode, you cannot import saved "reg" files, run the Reg.exe tool, restore a System State backup made with NT Backup, or use System Restore. I had tried the Recovery Console, and (under the guidance of a Microsoft Tech Support specialist) copied the original five registry files from Repair subfolder of Sys32. That didn't work either. 2. According to the authoritative book, "Windows XP: Inside Out" (Microsoft, 2001, p.815ff), "you may be able to repair your Windows XP installation using the Windows Setup program. . . . The repair option is quick and painless..." The same advice appears in other XP books. This is *not* the repair option that appears right after "Welcome to Setup" screen. At that screen, press Enter, not R. Soon after, press F8 to accept the EULA, and from the screen showing your Windows installations (usually one), choose the correct installation, and *then* press R. The setup program reloads XP OS files, then reboots your PC. Soon after this reboot, you'll get a message saying the system cannot find a file called "ASMS", and it gives you an input box to enter the correct path of that file. However, though an ASMS *folder* exists, there is no ASMS file on my Windows XP setup disk, probably not on yours either, no way to work around the error, and no way to continue past this point. At this point, a user writes to a newsgroup or searches Microsoft or Google for a KB article that could help. Or, like me, he or she calls Microsoft Tech Support (incident 1038826788 in my case) about the problem -- they guide you through all the above steps, and then summarily *give up without an explanation* when you get to the ASMS error, advise you to reinstall XP, and refund your $80. 3. The only Microsoft Knowledge Base article that pertains to this issue, Q311755, under the section on the NTFS file system, offers three "methods" to fix the problem. The first, running RegEdit, can only work if you can get to the command prompt -- but if you could run Windows in Safe Mode, you would not be using this last resort from the setup disk in the first place. The second method advises installing Windows in another partition; no thanks, that is no easier than reinstalling the whole OS on the main partition. The third method says to "use the original XP CDROM" (the one with the hologram), not a copy. If the original can't be found, "look for the Asms folder. If the folder is missing or the files that it contains are zero bytes, the CD-ROM was not burned correctly. " But as stated above, while an ASMS folder exists, there is no ASMS file, even on the hologram copy of the XP Pro setup CD. That's why this third solution fails. I should mention that some XP users apparenntly have used the repair function without receiving the "missing ASMS file" error. Please search on "asms" and "repair" at this site to see complaints similar to yours, and to follow the threads. Even so, I know there has been defect in the XP setup CD at some time in the past. It is evident Microsoft knows about the issue (since KB article Q311755 acknowledges it), and I believe it is time Microsoft publicly acknowledged this defect in their setup CD and offer some kind of workaround for those who have been affected. "Plato" wrote: > =?Utf-8?B?VGVuc2hvZG9tYW4=?= wrote: > > > > Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and > > got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File > > ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and > > find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system > > up now. > > http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm > http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315341 > > > -- > http://www.bootdisk.com/ > > >
Guest Claymore Posted July 17, 2007 Posted July 17, 2007 Re: Repair Install On Jul 16, 8:08 pm, Tenshodoman <Tenshodo...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and > got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File > ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and > find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system > up now. > > Cheers > > Rod Gayford Hello Rod, Read this through - note the different methods for FAT32 and NTFS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311755 Luck!
Guest Tenshodoman Posted July 18, 2007 Posted July 18, 2007 Re: Repair Install Thank you all for the help as I finally got my system up and running. Interestingly I searche the Microsoft KB for a solution to the ASMS problem but could not find it so thanks for pointing me in the right direction it all went well. The only problem that later in the set up process the system was searching for some further files, and although they were in the directory designated by the system they would not load so I just cancelled the request each time which did not affect the repair of the system. The only difficulty is that I have lost all my e-mails and had to reset up Outlook Express. Could the e-mails be still on the system somewhere, any tips would be appreciated. Once again thanks to everyone. Cheers Rod Gayford "Claymore" wrote: > On Jul 16, 8:08 pm, Tenshodoman > <Tenshodo...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > > Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and > > got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File > > ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and > > find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system > > up now. > > > > Cheers > > > > Rod Gayford > > Hello Rod, > > Read this through - note the different methods for FAT32 and NTFS: > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311755 > > Luck! > >
Guest Claymore Posted July 19, 2007 Posted July 19, 2007 Re: Repair Install On Jul 17, 10:42 pm, Tenshodoman <Tenshodo...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > Thank you all for the help as I finally got my system up and running. > Interestingly I searche the Microsoft KB for a solution to the ASMS problem > but could not find it so thanks for pointing me in the right direction it all > went well. The only problem that later in the set up process the system was > searching for some further files, and although they were in the directory > designated by the system they would not load so I just cancelled the request > each time which did not affect the repair of the system. The only difficulty > is that I have lost all my e-mails and had to reset up Outlook Express. > Could the e-mails be still on the system somewhere, any tips would be > appreciated. Once again thanks to everyone. > > Cheers > > Rod Gayford > > > > "Claymore" wrote: > > On Jul 16, 8:08 pm, Tenshodoman > > <Tenshodo...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > > > Tried repair install of my XP Professional Edition with Service Pack 2 and > > > got as far as the reboot to continue the install when system message The File > > > ASMS on XP Pack 2 CD is needed. Can anybody suggest how I can solve this and > > > find the file on the XP Disc or some work around as I cannot start my system > > > up now. > > > > Cheers > > > > Rod Gayford > > > Hello Rod, > > > Read this through - note the different methods for FAT32 and NTFS: > >http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311755 > > > Luck!- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - For the lost e-mails, first try a search for .dbx files. Also search for .bak files, especially in the Recycle Bin - you would be looking for such files as Inbox.bak, etc.
Recommended Posts