SATA drivers + corrupt windows

[pentoman]

We've been getting 1 second power outages this afternoon. Whilst my PC rebooted after the first one, there was another.

This has taken out something on my computer and I now get

crappy Windows said said:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
C:\Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM
Use the windows setup disk and select option r to try windows recovery

or something very similar.

I understand that file is my registry? WHere can I get a backup from? How recent should it be? Can some sort of Windows restore do this for me?

I tried the windows CD which boots up to the windows installer. But I don't get the option R to repair. I get asked to specify additional SCSI adapters, which I have on floppy. After this though it just goes on to ask me which partition I'd like to put Windows on .

I could happily boot to DOS myself and restore from a backup of the SYSTEM file, but unfortunately my hard disk is SATA, and although I have the drivers for it on floppy, I don't know how to install them with DOS. All I see if I boot with a DOS boot disk is the drive A: I booted from.



I was also at checkpoint 31 of 32 in Test Drive Unlimited on the millionaires challenge (I had raced for an hour to get there) when the power failure happened

[aldi]

Can you put that hard disk in another PC and run a chkdsk /f on it? Thats the first thing to try.

If that doesnt work you can get a copy of c:/windows/system32/config/system from c:/windows/repair, but it will be at the state it was when XP was first installed i.e. no drivers installed and it *may* give you an inacessible_boot_device error due to the sata situation. The other place you can try looking is in the 'system volume information' folder, it keeps the system restore data in there and there may be a more up to date copy burried in one of the subfolders if you look hard enough. Again since you can't get to a restore prompt or a DOS prompt best bet is to do it by putting the disk in another PC.

Ps, sata drivers might not be the issue for the DOS boot disk, but NTFSDOS probably is.

[ThePassenger]

I doubt it will work when it comes to the repair console, but it's worth a try.
Go in to your computers BIOS, see if it has a 'compatibility mode' for the SATA system. If it does turn it on and try again.

[twister]

Had the same problem a few years ago with my PATA system drive, and ended up having to reinstall everything again from scratch. Which, I guess, isn't what you want to hear, so fingers crossed you can repair your system in a slightly less painful manner. What it did persuade me to do was invest in a small UPS, which has kept my system up and running without any drama through several subsequent brown/black-outs. Doesn't undo the damage that was already caused, but you don't want to have to go through this twice...

[Scraggles]

backup your data, format C:

re-install, save your firewall and viruskiller to CD with the registration info, my backup did not work and had to d/l the trials off the net. only got 3-5 spyware apps install themselves on the virgin pc, soon wiped and took 6 hours to have a reasonalbly updated and working pc, few more hours to slap the games back on, all of which seem better and so no more pap installs for the moment

[pentoman]

OK well I just got back from the pub which is probably not the best time to do this but hey.

I booted SUSE live linux from CD on my PC, but can't for the life of me figure out how I am supposed to access/browse my hard disk. I always hated Linux.

Cheers for NTFS dos I will give it a go.

Back in the morning.... thanks for the help so far

[pentoman]

OK good call - NTFSDOS means I can now browse the hard disk acceptably.

However if I try to copy a file or anything on the disk I get an access denied error. I never did understand those tedious NTFS file permissions.....

[SneakyNeil]

The free version of ntfsdos is read only, the paid version is full access, sorry didnt make that clear.

Havent used SuSE for yonks so I don't know if theres an easy/graphical way, but the Linspire live CD does mount all partitions to be graphically browseable with no messing about.

[Zod]

Unless the disk is dead, just do a repair install of Windows. 90% of the time, that will deal with the problem.

[pentoman]

SneakyNeil said:

The free version of ntfsdos is read only, the paid version is full access, sorry didnt make that clear.

Ah ok yes that makes sense! Thanks. Gave up and went to bed in the end, will try again tomorrow. I hate it when just as your computer's running smoothly like a games console, it comes and bites you in the arse!!

SneakyNeil said:

Havent used SuSE for yonks.... Linspire live ...

Those awful, awful names they come up with...

[TheExcession]

!!! STOP - DO NOT FORMAT YOUR HARD DISK !!!

There should be a backup copy of SYSTEM in the same config directory.

It's called SYSTEM.ALT - if you can boot from the setup disk into a console you can do the following steps

cd c:windowssystem32config
copy SYSTEM SYSTEM.BROKEN
copy SYSTEM.ALT SYSTEM


now reboot.

You have a copy of the broken SYSTEM file should you need it.
I had eaxctly the same problem on my machine after a power spike a few weeks ago. These steps brought it back to life.

[Philbes]

If you do a search on the Microsoft website for XP+SATA+boot+floppy there are instructions on how to make a floppy boot disk that includes the SATA driver and BOOTINI file. Worked for me with a Windows system that won't boot into Windows.

[pentoman]

TheExcession said:

!!! STOP - DO NOT FORMAT YOUR HARD DISK !!!

There should be a backup copy of SYSTEM in the same config directory.

It's called SYSTEM.ALT - if you can boot from the setup disk into a console you can do the following steps

cd c:windowssystem32config
copy SYSTEM SYSTEM.BROKEN
copy SYSTEM.ALT SYSTEM


now reboot.

You have a copy of the broken SYSTEM file should you need it.
I had eaxctly the same problem on my machine after a power spike a few weeks ago. These steps brought it back to life.

Thanks - I'll try this now. I just realised my XP 64 installation (which I never used because I couldn't find 64 bit wireless drivers...) should work fine and it does! So I can mess around and repair files to my heart's content. I'm loving the 64 bit action and convincing myself it's somehow better.....


Sadly I can't find a backup SYSTEM file except the really old one from when you reinstall windows . And also my original 5 MB one which i've backed up. Wonder if it's repairable. Wouldn't that be backed up as part of a system restore point??

[pentoman]

OK thanks all - problem solved


Amazingly enough, by a Microsoft article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/30754 It's long winded but the basic premise is:

I booted to my XP64 installation, copied backup registry files which I have found live in
C:System Volume Information~$......RPxxx

and system starts fine!

Thanks for the help...

Russell

[SneakyNeil]

aldi said:

The other place you can try looking is in the 'system volume information' folder, it keeps the system restore data in there and there may be a more up to date copy burried in one of the subfolders if you look hard enough.

And they say nobody reads anymore

[pentoman]

Oops , well I did actually find them based on that suggestion, which was obviously logged subliminally as I didn't remember reading it here ! Well done that man (or woman).