Hard disk crash

Post by **another_commander** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:58 am

Bad news, I'm afraid. Last night my hard disk crashed. Windows 2K will not start. Booting stops at the Starting Windows screen, with a message that the file C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\SYSTEM is missing or is corrupt. Safe mode, safe mode with command prompt or any other option offered at startup for that matter, will not work.

I believe the files on the disk - including latest development Oolite source and Windows binaries - are still well, just not accessible at the moment. When I get home (currently out on a job mission), I will attempt to boot Linux to try to recover the particular file that's problematic, from the Windows repair folder. Until then, I cannot do anything Oolite related.

Any further ideas for fixing this are more than welcome at this moment. Hopefully I will be able to get back with good news.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:05 am

Sorry for you, another_commander!

I hope you'll be able to recover your system or at least your files, although I can do absolutely nothing to help you.

Perhaps you could open another social club, together with A_H?!?

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:14 am

Very sorry to hear that AN

. Good luck with recovering the data, having "survived", badlly mauled from the same thing myself in the past, I just hope you had a backup, I'm paranoid on that sort of thing now!
Two hard drives in the PC, an external HD and a big stick!

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:30 pm

This is what killed my PC.....

Captain Hesperus

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:08 pm

sometimes you can fix this by doing a chkdsk /f using the recovery console:-
Boot using your windows 2000 cd, when asked choose the option to repair windows rather than install a new copy.

Choose to use the recovery console and not the emergency repair process
it'll scan your hard disk to find out what operating systems are on there and possible ask for the password of the administrator account, when you've done all this you will be at a c prompt, type...

chkdsk /f

...and press enter, hopefully your pc will be able to scan the hard disk and fix any problem files.

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:26 pm

Griff wrote:
sometimes you can fix this by doing a chkdsk /f using the recovery console:-
Boot using your windows 2000 cd, when asked choose the option to repair windows rather than install a new copy.

Choose to use the recovery console and not the emergency repair process
it'll scan your hard disk to find out what operating systems are on there and possible ask for the password of the administrator account, when you've done all this you will be at a c prompt, type...

chkdsk /f

...and press enter, hopefully your pc will be able to scan the hard disk and fix any problem files.

Where were you when Dell told me 'Sorry, sounds like your system's screwed. You need to reformat.....Or you could upgrade to our newest system.". I told him where he could 'install' his new system.

Captain Hesperus

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:35 pm

heh, i very rarely try and offer computer fixing advice, not since i tried to help lolwhites with a graphics card problem and he ended up having to flash the bios chip in his pc!

the chkdsk /f thing doesn't always work, but sometimes it can recover whatever file it is that's corrupted and stopping windows from starting.

Post by **another_commander** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:08 am

Thanks for the moral support and the tips guys. Looks like all has been restored to normal. For possible future reference, the fix occured almost accidentally, and consisted of simply running an XP installation up to the very last step before it begins the install and irreversibly touches the hard disk. Apparently, during the preparation process it updated or fixed the damaged system file. At least that is my interpretation, but the important part is that all seems to work again.

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:09 am

So then, a_c, when are you scheduling that back-up?

Captain Hesperus

Post by **another_commander** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:19 am

Already done. Heh!

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:37 am

And are you doing them daily now

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:46 am

Congrats, a_c!

Nice to know that you're up and running again!

Shade · Post by **Shade** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:12 pm

Might I suggest: use RAID 1 (at least), and set restrictive file permission. RAID 1 is a little exotic on the Windows side of things but most linux distros make software RAID 1 trivial. I keep /home and a 'shared media' folder on the RAID, and don't really care if '/' dies as it's linux. You can grow your RAID with LVM, but what I do is physically add another disk once a year, and pull the smallest disk out, rebuild the RAID 1, and 'done'. With the small disk serving a backup until it gets sfilled and given away. (If you re-build it right you should have two copies of your data during the process.)