Windows system repair.

Discussion in 'Windows OS's' started by zeus, Sep 9, 2003.

  1. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Windows is knackered on both my hdds now for no reason at all.
    I must have a virus. Its not showing any signs of being bad segments or clusters or anything like that.

    As is, my 15gb old hdd has lost its copy of ntfs.sys.
    Ive tried copying it from my xp cd rom but it just wont do it.

    My 80gb new wd hdd has lost its pci.sys file. Yesterday it lost browserui.dll, but I just copied it from my 15gb and it worked fine all day.

    Ive just found out though that if you boot up off the xp cd rom you can repair windows.
    Ive started to repair windows on the 15gb drive.

    The thing is its looking like its reinstalling windows without formatting. I didnt install anything on the first installation of windows on that drivce so dont know if its deleted any of my documents.

    Does anyone know if I repair my 80gb drives's copy of windows if any of my documents will get deleted. I really cant lose anything this time, Ive got a years worth of college work and all my photos.


    Ive tried that post of mine, when windows is on its knees.
    Again it doesnt work for me. God knows why, other commands Ive used when trying to copy the missing files from the cd rom haven't worked either.

    Its doing my head it!
     
  2. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Id still like to know, but ive managed to copy it from my 15gb drive.
    I hope I haven't gotta do this tomorrow again!
     
  3. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    You can do an install over the current Windows install and still have your stuff there. As long as you don't format the drive, they should be available.
     
  4. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Im beginning to think this has gotta be a virus.

    The 80gb drive has been on the net, though the 15gb drive hasnt. But I get missing files on both for no reason.
    But also my step dads comp has suddenly decided its lost 3 sys files too.

    We do have windows from the same disk but our computers arent linked together and we dont share disks or anything like that. Hes just gone on the net this morning, rebooted and 3 sys files are gone. If there was something dodgy about a disk or file ive got it would be impossible for me to pass it on to the comp upstairs.

    So for the 4th day in a row ve gotta try and replace missing windows files! But now on 2 different computer!
     
  5. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    My stepdads hdd is knackered. It lost its file system some how.
    Ive recovered the data fine but have one small problem.

    His email are quite important, hes gotta have em, but the thing is, cant find them!
    They arent in outlook express' directory

    Does anybody know where they will be? Im sure they haven't been deleted.... but I cant find them.

    A very big thanks to whoever can help me out!! :)
     
  6. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    0
    my best advice would be to do a search for all *.dbx files.
     
  7. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    :)
    Cheers dude!
    I havent't used outlook express for years and years..... I didnt know they went under the .dbx name.

    Ive found them, and got them working on the new hdd.

    In fact that whole drive is perfect! Ive manged to retrieve everything from the old broken drive.

    Cheers harrack :)
     
  8. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Glad everything works :)

    If you go in outlook express: tools/options, under the maintenance tab, there's a button named "store folder", that is where all the e-mails are stored.

    This is a hidden folder so if you don't specify that you want to see all hidden files and folders, you can never access it, unless you copy and paste the whole path in Windows explorer, or the adress bar of the "My computer" screen. (forgot what the real name is)
     
  9. Sniper

    Sniper Administrator Staff Member

    Likes Received:
    59
    Trophy Points:
    63
    what I do is change it so it stores all the emails on a different partition just it case something goes wrong!
     
  10. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Yeah, thats summit im planning on doing.
    Same for my documents. My stepdad went white for 2days whilst I was sorting it all out.
    His entire business was on that computer!

    Is it ok to create a ntfs partition after ive installed windows on the c:?
    Or have I got to create any partitions I want and then install windows?
     
  11. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    So long as you have one partition big enough to install XP on, you can create the rest of the partitions through the Disk Management portion of the Administrative tools. If your dad's important stuff is on that PC, invest in some backup device like a CD-RW, Tape Drive, whatever...just keep it backed up regularly somehow. Data recovery services run several thousand dollars to start with, and that's if the platters are intact (no head crashes or other damage to the hard disk platters themselves). If they're not, you're SOL.
     
  12. gatos_2004

    gatos_2004 Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    my advice is whatever you do, first back up the important data, files, anything important
    then you can mess around with your computer...
     
  13. misunoko

    misunoko Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    you wouldnt have a version of linux by anychance cos they will eat each other to shredds
     
  14. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

    Likes Received:
    118
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Polite Rebuttal: The only times Windows and Linux would cease to play nice together would be:

    a) You made the mistake of putting Windows and Linux on the same [FAT32] partition, and they run in tandem
    b) You try to use Linux disc partitioning tools to resize an NTFS partition that's already occupied with NT5/NT5.1 and near full
    c) You allow Windows to mess with your Linux partitions by placing 'nix on a FAT16/32 partition and giving Windows read/write access to it

    If you have a reasonable multi-boot setup, you should never have a problem with one OS that affects both, unless it's hardware failure. I've used Linux to fix broken Windows files and recover data dozens of times, and Zeus surely would've done the same if he could've. I'm not a Linux zealot or anything; I don't believe an OS can cure world hunger. But if you're wise about your setup, you shouldn't have OSes having eachother for breakfast either.
     

Share This Page