Can't boot or access C drive
in [Windows XP]
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From: Paul on 15 Jul 2010 17:28 rj wrote: > Windows XP won't boot. I tried reinstalling Windows but keep getting a blue > screen even after deleting, recreating and formatting the C drive. I booted > with an MSDOS floppy but can't access C drive. It may be a boot sector > virus. How do I format the entire hard drive so I can do a clean install? > > Do you need, and have you installed an F6 driver, for the storage interface you're using ? SATA now, for example, comes with BIOS settings of IDE, AHCI, and RAID. The latter two need drivers on WinXP. Only the vanilla IDE mode, might work with no driver. And an installer CD of at least SP1 or later is recommended for that case. The blue screen may indicate "inaccessible boot volume" or the like. Stop errors are listed here. A "7b" is an inaccessible boot volume. http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm With the right MSDOS floppy, you can access the drive. The MSDOS floppy I made while running Win98, can access FAT32 partitions. And this one, will also access NTFS partitions. The only problem with this product, is it doesn't support LFN (long file names), so is virtually useless other than to prove there is an NTFS partition present. There are plenty of other free tools, that are more useful than this (like a Linux LiveCD or even the GParted LiveCD). A Linux LiveCD can read or write to FAT32 or NTFS partitions. Try Ubuntu for example. http://www.free-av.com/en/download/11/avira_ntfs4dos_personal.html You can use a downloadable disk diagnostic, to prove the hard drive is still good. Other than that, you may need to press F6 and install the correct driver for the SATA or IDE interface. Since we know you have a floppy interface, this should be easy to do :-) Paul
From: pjp on 15 Jul 2010 21:32 Boot with the DOS disk (98SE recovery floppy is good for this). Run Fdisk and delete, then recreate the existing partition. Then format the drive (after a reboot using floppy). Then run "sys c" to put the DOS system on the drive. That will get you to where hard disk boots to a DOS prompt but note you'll have no access to cd drives etc. without specific drivers being loaded. This will work if the drive isn't so big you can format to FAT32 rather than NTFS, DOS doesn't know anything about NTFS. If it's a big drive use what's provided as part of XP's install instead. Note - you can still delete existing partitions using DOS and I do believe even recreating them is ok. Just the formatting of a big drive exceeding DOS's limits is a problem. "rj" <rjnothere(a)netzero.net> wrote in message news:ulZXW%23DJLHA.1868(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > Windows XP won't boot. I tried reinstalling Windows but keep getting a > blue > screen even after deleting, recreating and formatting the C drive. I > booted > with an MSDOS floppy but can't access C drive. It may be a boot sector > virus. How do I format the entire hard drive so I can do a clean install? > >
From: rj on 16 Jul 2010 10:52 Thank you all for your responses. DOS could not delete any partitions (I tried all the delete options in FDISK) so I deleted them with BING and also with the Win XP Setup CD. I error checked and formatted the entire hard drive just in case it was a virus, also did fdisk /mbr even if it's redundant. Win XP still won't install. There are too many error messages to list. It won't copy many dl_ files etc. I tried the Ultimate Boot CD but it won't do anything. So I'll take it to the shop to run diagnostics. "rj" <rjnothere(a)netzero.net> wrote in message news:ulZXW%23DJLHA.1868(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > Windows XP won't boot. I tried reinstalling Windows but keep getting a blue > screen even after deleting, recreating and formatting the C drive. I booted > with an MSDOS floppy but can't access C drive. It may be a boot sector > virus. How do I format the entire hard drive so I can do a clean install? > >
From: rj on 19 Jul 2010 09:28
Update - I had 2 blown capacitors on my mb, maybe due to lightning power surge, hence I recycled my old computer and got a new one. "rj" <rjnothere(a)netzero.net> wrote in message news:ulZXW%23DJLHA.1868(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > Windows XP won't boot. I tried reinstalling Windows but keep getting a blue > screen even after deleting, recreating and formatting the C drive. I booted > with an MSDOS floppy but can't access C drive. It may be a boot sector > virus. How do I format the entire hard drive so I can do a clean install? > > |