well i got it to work it was a bad floppy. while i was writing my last post that was all that was left to troubleshoot. i repaired windows but. got a blue screen after the restart. i'm guessing it's becuase of what the last guy posted about the MBR. i was wonding which would be best fixmbr or fixboot????

well i used fix MBR and seemed like everything is good to go. ran the repair again. and after it was done it reboot and right before loading windows i get a nice blue screen that flashes then the computer reboots. whats your take on it? HDD=USELESS???????

man, that sucks.

hdd would be my first guess, do you have an extra you can try? get PowerMax or a similar program to test your hard drive, too.

although you said it worked on the dell... can you get your data off of it and wipe it, and then do a full reinstall instead of a repair?

it's a huge hassle, but it might be worth it to start looking to salvage rather than repair.

there's always the standard process - unhook everything you don't need and see if it works, then start connecting hardware again.

you could also try downloading the knoppix CD and seeing if it will boot with that. if not then it's likely not your hard drive.

Go to http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ and make yourself a Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD. Boot from the CD. Even though it's a stand alone XP installation it will still access the files on your installation. When it opens up, go to run and type in

c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe.

That will open system restore. Then restore the system to before you installed the updates.

will any of those programs work even after the fixmbr, swapping to the Dell and repairing. etc? those things seem more like a fix when none of those things have been attempted.

K Rock XP

i tried using bartpe loaded it up typed what you said and got "the application has failed to start becuase SRRSTR.dll as not found. Re-Installing the application may fix this problem" any ideas?

don't know about the bart pe dll, but srrstr.dll missing sounds like it's gone. system restore, i mean.

powermax doesn't run in a 32bit environment; it makes a bootable floppy that you can use even if windows isn't working.

you guys want to get a good laugh. i used the bart program to use the Comand prompt and i started using DIR etc and found that in the system32\restore rstrui.exe doesn't exist...lol...i'm gonna connect it as a secondary drive on the Dell and salvage as much data as i can. then i'll do a clean install. it sucks it's come to this.

K Rock XP

my files were password protected so i oticed when i used it on the Dell before it said the files in my documents were inaccessible . how could i get around this? i've heard creating a account with my old user name and password it would let me see the contents.

well that didn't work...lol... anyone know any way for me to get into my documents. says access denied every time i try to go into them. i need everything in those folders. i'll cry if i lose that...lol


K Rock XP

PS: what a weekend its been for me.....

Go to this thread and read my post at the bottom on how to access those files. You may need to create a new user name with admin properties to access the files. Let me know if it works.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/46223/

well i did a clean install and restored all my inportant files. Wanted to thank everyone for their help and i've learned a lot in the past week. Thanks again for everything guys!

K Rock XP

Dude. Windows updates hosed my machine. Just thought I'd share my similar experience.
I tired installing XP over the weekend. First I tried an upgrade install from windows 2000. Afterwards Roxio easy media creator complained about trying to install components every time I tried doing anything, like even dragging a file anywhere, so I uninstalled it. That broke my CD-ROM drive. I tried to tweak the upperfilters / lowerfilters registry keys after reading up on how roxio can destroy your CD-ROM drivers but no luck.
I tried networking with a mac using firewire to back up my data but IP over firewire never worked. Neither did the program firenet on mac or PC. I installed all of the windows updates at the same time and then it wouldn't boot, I thought it was the registry tweaking I was doing that broke it but a repair install of XP didn't work either. Finally I bought USB 2 housing for my hard drive and hooked it up and backed up to my new G5 as an external hard drive (Disk utility didn't work but toast did). I love my new G5 by the way.
And yes, I had initial problems installing windows XP on my ultra ATA drive until I found the right floppy disk with the drivers on them. XP doesn't make it easy to install on large hard drives.
I threw the hard drive back into my PC, formatted the drive, and installed XP for a third time. Then I made a mistake of installing all of the updates at once again. Now my PC won't boot again, with a fresh install and formmated hard drive. My copy is legit. Thanks a lot XP.

Well after trying to install XP a couple more times with a CD ROM drive, it failed in different places each time, so it must have some hardware issue. Ironically the hard drive I'm installing it to passed all diagnostics, but the other drive failed its own smart self test. Anyway I'm not sure what the hardware problems are but I've had crashes while formatting, booting the first time, and installing the updates, so it looks like a hardware problem.

Go here and download the 6 XP install floppies. Use them to install the temporary installation files XP needs. After installing the floppies you will be prompted to continue the installation from the CD. Hopefully that will help. Also look at your CD. A speck of dirt or goop stuck on there that interferes with reading one little file can screw up the whole install. If you need to wash the CD very gently in some warm soapy water and blot dry it with a lint free towel. There are 3 different sets for XP Home and 3 for XP Pro. Original CDs SP1 CDs and SP2 CDs Make sure you use the correct set.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994...0121120120

Thanks but I don't think it's the CD, I've used it before on my laptop and it worked fine.
...Maybe it was the updates? First I thought it was bad memory so I ran memtest on it, but the tests ran fine. Then I thought if the secondary drive was faulty maybe somehow it was interrupting the boot process, so I disconnected it, formatted the first drive again and installed XP again (for the 5th time). It booted fine, I installed the ethernet driver again, and then I ran the 25 updates microsoft recommended running...And now it hangs at boot time again. What else could it be?

lol i had same problem ....what a waste of time updating,....... i say if it works fine without updateing why do it,,,,,,, to get a head ache ill pass,,, i bought xp for 349 cdn n im very unhappy i cant install updates,,, i may as well be using a copyed version.... very mad.

"Microsoft has some sort of "Genuine Windows" checker now and they are pretty sneeky when it comes to updates."

>>> http://www.extended64.com/blogs/rafael/archive/2005/07/27/1026.aspx <<<

Hello from Windows Safe Mode with networking support!
I don't think Microsoft would hose your computer to try and prevent piracy. My XP's legit so it must be a hardware conflict.
So I found the IT downloadable version of SP 2 and tried doing that instead of going through windows update, hoping I could skip the update that was screwing my computer. SP 2 installed fine and so I made restore points and backed up the registry, and then tried running windows update again...And I'm back to not being able to boot.
Usually I make it past the initial reboot after the update to windows update itself and crash on the next 25 updates, this time I didn't even make it past the reboot after the update to the update. The "system restore" feature is neat but hasn't restored my machine. Anyone run into this problem?
I'm going to update my BIOS, reinstall the graphics card software, the mobo software, and hope that one of these resolves whatever conflict I'm getting.
I now hate that windows boot screen...I wish I knew what it was doing. I miss windows 98 where you could hit tab to make the pretty graphics disappear and watch it load the drivers in dos.
I hate you XP.

Yeah, just as I thought, system restore didn't do anything but importing my manual registry backup actually did. Now the machine runs fine as long as I don't run windows update. But now I'm running a security hole prone flakey OS. Hmm. Better get a good firewall and antivirus. Anyone know what hardware conflicts could be fighting with windows update? Thanks.