Need to SAVE XP install (boot shows multiple Window choices)

[hobkirk]

I am trying to save a server. Somebody has added invalid Window boot options and none work.

The choices shown are:

• 
  Microsoft Windows XP Professional (select and it immediately reboots)
  Microsoft Windows XP Professional (select and it displays: Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem)
  Microsoft Windows 2000 (select and it displays: Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem)
  Microsoft Windows (select and a blinking cursor appears and stays in the top left corner)

I setup this server many years (XP Pro). I've examined the HD (added the drive to another PC) and everything I expect to see looks correct. No Windows 2000, no "Windows".

The original PC is being very flaky - it sometimes wouldn't find the IDE drives, but it fixed a couple of times by moving from primary to secondary socket on MB. Now it won't see them.

So I moved the HD to a new )old) PC - a P4 Gateway 570GR. I know Win XP drives can't be swapped to another PC, but this seems to "work"the same as the original PC. I get the 4 choices, selecting each option triggers the same reaction.

I thought I could maybe REPAIR, but I cannot get the Gateway 570 P4 PC to boot from the DVD. I deactivated LAN in the BIOS because that might have been the cause of the message "Exiting Intel PXE MOF Boot" Hey! I just restored the LAN and reboot displayed "hit any key to boot from CD".

Is REPAIR my best chance to restore this? I want to keep the original multi-user server DB (Progress 4GL).

THANKS

 

[chassmith]

put the HDD on another PC extract the data you need and then format it. your boot-loader is messed... there maybe a way to restore the MBR but if you can just grab what yeah need and kill it to new and start over do that.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

test the suspect hard disk in another PC with Western Digital DataLifeguard for windows or Seagate equivalent
If it passes the hardware test without many bad sectors
then run chkdsk on the suspect disk

look at boot.ini on the corrupted disk and post the contents here.

example working XP boot.ini
-------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT

--------------------------------------
this assumes Windows is on first partition of disk 0


regards

Mike Barnes