elocinanna Posted August 27, 2009 Posted August 27, 2009 Hello, windows xp media centre won't boot because of a driver problem, it's a driver from alcohol 120% and i know exactly which one it is. Am I right in thinking if i manage to get rid of this driver, and also a reference to it in the hkey/registry (i warn you i have no idea what these things are!) i can boot windows again? If not, I don't really mind not booting windows again as I was going to move to linux soon anyway (currently only xp media centre on laptop) but I'd love to get some of the files off first, I made a boot disc (i don't have the windows cd anymore) and tried some dos programs to save my files (copy them to an external harddrive or a different partition) but I couldn't figure out how to use one or find instructions on the internet! Can someone reccommend either a simple or at least well documented way of either getting windows to run or salvaging the files on the same partition as the windows files. Thankyou! Quote
RandyL Posted August 28, 2009 Posted August 28, 2009 Have you tried booting into safemode? Quote We are all members helping other members. Please return here where you may be able to help someone else. After all, no one knows everything and you may have the answer that someone needs.Get help with computer problems. Join Free PC Help here Donations are welcome. Read Here
Tootech Posted August 28, 2009 Posted August 28, 2009 Or Last Known Good Config - that may work if Windows hasn't booted and logged on successfully since you installed the culprit software. If that doesn't work, you can run a Knoppix Live CD to get at your data. KNOPPIX Linux Live CD Download, burn the ISO, and boot. Make sure you have a USB stick or external hard drive plugged in on boot. Once you get to the desktop, there will be an icon for each available drive to the left hand side. You can double click each to mount and explore. Have a window open for your old drive, one for your USB drive and copy your data over. Don't cut or move it, copy it. Quote
elocinanna Posted August 28, 2009 Author Posted August 28, 2009 Brilliant thankyou, KNOPPIX looks promising. My computer won't load into safemode or use last known good configuration. I've tried all the options on the computer (safe mode with networking etc) but they all have a list of white filepaths loading, and then it gets to a certain one (i think it's a347bus) and then says failed and stays there. But anyway once I get to my laptop I'll try KNOPPIX and cross my fingers! Quote
elocinanna Posted August 31, 2009 Author Posted August 31, 2009 (edited) Righty-o, Knoppix has made a vast improvement over what was there before, I am writing from that same laptop that wouldn't boot windows. I also copied all the files from my D drive (which is an NTFS partition, same as the C drive) but it won't even let me look at the files on the C drive. It's been designated sda2 but i can't mount it, it comes up with an error that says "Error org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure." The only difference between the two partitions is that C (or sda2) has all the windows files on it whereas d is pictures/games/work/etc. Unfortunately I have a file on my c drive that has a lot of personal value to me or else I'd just format the thing. I've tried looking at man mount and throwing some things into the command line but I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I got this, and was interested by the star under boot for sda2, hopefully it's a good clue. " Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 912 7325608+ 12 Compaq diagnostics /dev/sda2 * 913 10639 78132127+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda3 10640 19457 70830585 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 10640 19457 70830553+ 7 HPFS/NTFS " as far as sda1 and sda3 are concerned I haven't really got a clue what they are... maybe they're part of the problem? Anyway thanks again, I think it's really cool that people come onto this site just to give help to other people! Edited August 31, 2009 by Tootech Quote
Tootech Posted August 31, 2009 Posted August 31, 2009 Glad you have recovered most of your files :) Regarding your problem mounting C drive, that is an odd error. A couple of things come to mind, one your C partition is marked as dirty because it didn't shutdown properly when running Windows, or two, there is a physical fault on the drive. Do you have a Windows CD? If you do boot from it and get yourself to the Recovery Console. Type chkdsk /r and press Enter Leave it to run, it could take an hour or so and will sort out any hard drive errors. When it has finshed, type dir and press Enter You should see a list of the C drive. Reboot to Knoppix and have another go. Quote
elocinanna Posted September 1, 2009 Author Posted September 1, 2009 Unfortunately I don't have the Windows CD, and can't think of any way of getting one. The driver that sent everything topsy-turvy (yes that's a technical term!) was on the C drive and I believe it was corrupted during a failed windows boot so it'd probably be what you suggested. Is there any way of getting to my C drive without the windows CD that you can think of? I'd be very grateful! Quote
Tootech Posted September 1, 2009 Posted September 1, 2009 Download the XP Recovery Console ISO from here. http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso Burn the ISO, boot from it and run chkdsk. Quote
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