Hi,
First, thanks for any replies.
I'm having an issue with my parent's business computer. I received a call from them last night stating an update was installed to XP. They then told me the computer froze up, and they did a hard restart to it.
After the restart XP won't boot. It get's to the BIOS screen, and afterwards just shows a black screen with a flashing underscore.
Now here is the tricky part: I inserted the XP cd. I tried to repair the installation, but it stated no installation was found. The HDD was completly empty.
2.) I went to the recovery console. I do not get the option to select the windows installation.
So now I'm thinking, is the HDD fried or did they somehow format the entire drive?
3.) So I unplug the HDD from the computer, and insert it into another computer. After starting the computer up I see the drive and explore it. All the files are there (the windows directory, personal files, etc...)
4.) I run some diagnostics on the HDD and the windows 10 computer states there are no errors.
5.) I backup all the files from the harddrive and unplug it again. I plug it back into the prior computer and try another boot.
6.) No luck. I go to the BIOS and it is reading the HDD. However, when I go to recovery console or to repair option it does not see a Windows installation. Although its there!
7.) So I go to recovery console and do a chkdsk and it says the drive has unrecoverable problems. However, the Win 10 chkdsk stated no problems.
8.) So after researching on these forums I find that maybe the recovery console isn't detecting a Windows installation because the boot files are no longer there.
So, if you were able to keep up with that...any ideas? Thanks!![Smile :) :)](/data/assets/smilies/smile.gif)
First, thanks for any replies.
I'm having an issue with my parent's business computer. I received a call from them last night stating an update was installed to XP. They then told me the computer froze up, and they did a hard restart to it.
After the restart XP won't boot. It get's to the BIOS screen, and afterwards just shows a black screen with a flashing underscore.
Now here is the tricky part: I inserted the XP cd. I tried to repair the installation, but it stated no installation was found. The HDD was completly empty.
2.) I went to the recovery console. I do not get the option to select the windows installation.
So now I'm thinking, is the HDD fried or did they somehow format the entire drive?
3.) So I unplug the HDD from the computer, and insert it into another computer. After starting the computer up I see the drive and explore it. All the files are there (the windows directory, personal files, etc...)
4.) I run some diagnostics on the HDD and the windows 10 computer states there are no errors.
5.) I backup all the files from the harddrive and unplug it again. I plug it back into the prior computer and try another boot.
6.) No luck. I go to the BIOS and it is reading the HDD. However, when I go to recovery console or to repair option it does not see a Windows installation. Although its there!
7.) So I go to recovery console and do a chkdsk and it says the drive has unrecoverable problems. However, the Win 10 chkdsk stated no problems.
8.) So after researching on these forums I find that maybe the recovery console isn't detecting a Windows installation because the boot files are no longer there.
So, if you were able to keep up with that...any ideas? Thanks!
![Smile :) :)](/data/assets/smilies/smile.gif)