Question Trying to fix corrupted WinXP SP3 on an old Dell

[rqprastein]

I have an old Dell Optiplex GX280 mini-tower PC that I decided to reclaim for use as a file server for backups. When I started, it had Win XP SP2.

• The first issue was it wouldn't power on; that was resolved by replacing the PSU.
• I ran all remaining updates still available in Windows Updates.
• I downloaded a copy of SP3 from the Microsoft Update Catalog server (different URL from the one used by Windows Updates, contains SP3 and security hotfixes only, basically)
• I installed the last couple of hotfixes before SP3, and installed SP3.
• Now I started getting ATI Monitor errors, claiming the driver is not present.
• Tried updating my NVidia drivers to the recommended Catalyst Control Center version 10.2.

I fussed with the video drivers quite a bit. That's still not working right, every time I use Remote Desktop to access this PC, it goes to VGA resolution.

I decided to try to back up what I have before messing any further with the video drivers (I plan to completely remove them all and then try installing them).

• I made several unsuccessful attempts to image the HDD with Macrium Reflect 7 and save the image to another PC on my local network.
• I ended up imaging only the C: drive, and using Beyond Compare to copy files and folders from the F: (Data) drive.
• Next, I added a 2TB HDD, after which I noticed a SMART warning on the old HDD.
• I cloned everything except the F: drive to the new HDD.
• I ran SpinRite 6 on the old HDD, identifying a bad cluster and recovering the bad sectors. NOW I was able to clone the F: drive to the new disk.

Compared files and folders on F: on the new disk to the ones I had backed up before over the network, and they are the same.

• Swapped HDD SATA cables on the motherboard, so I'm now booting from the new HDD. Fixed all of the drive letters in Windows and gave the old drive new volume names.
• Converted the new C: drive from FAT32 to NTFS using the convert.exe Windows utility and following instructions I found online to make sure I didn't end up with a fragmented MFT.
• Created a Macrium Rescue Disk and a rescue option on the boot menu (this required NTFS)

OK, since getting that all set up, I've been trying to get one definitive backup of everything and save it off to another PC, but the Macrium job is hanging at making the volume shadow copy.

So I thought I'd give another shot at the video driver issue, and the first step of that in my notes to myself is to set a system restore point.
***
Well, except that in the System Restore Settings (rt-click My Computer | Properties | System Restore), the C: drive isn't even listed as an available drive. The old C: drive (which is now the P: drive) is on the list and is identified as the System drive. But it's NOT. In the Disk Management MMC snap-in, everything looks correct: C: (OPTIPLEX) is the System drive, and P: (OLDOPTIPLEX) is an Active partition. I had a momentary thought that maybe the BIOS was passing control to C: and then C: was passing it to P: to load Windows, but I just did a Macrium "Boot Fix" and put both of them on the boot menu clearly identifying which is which, and no, I'm definitely booting to the new HDD. Macrium Reflect shows both C: and P: as Active partitions.

So, I'm wondering if anything is actually wrong with System Restore, or if it's just that the C: drive isn't listed as "available" because it's the partition that Windows is loaded from? If I go ahead and create a Restore Point, Windows doesn't complain, and I see the Restore Point there to restore from. I'm going to try installing something and see if it goes away when I restore...

But if that's normal System Restore Settings behavior, that still doesn't explain why I can't get past the VSS snapshot step of creating a new Macrium Reflect disk image.
I'm suspecting something in the registry is still pointing to the old HDD, or perhaps that there are corrupted system files left over from the bad HDD, but I'm not sure where to go from here.


Rebeccah

 

[rqprastein]

OK, the System Restore question is not answered, but the Macrium Reflect issue is. I had installed Macrium Reflect on the OLD HDD, and although nearly everything got cloned over to the new HDD, it apparently wasn't enough for it to function normally, even after running a "repair" option from the installer. I finally uninstalled it from the new HDD and then installed it again, and now it's doing a backup image over the network.