Mother of cr*p. So now that I'm facing reality, I think the Win7 USB key
did more than I expected b/c when I'm in the recovery console and go to C:\
and type "dir" I see very few files and dirs and I also see 99,756,855,296
bytes free on a 100GB HD (which had a lot more data on it)... *SIGH*
So I figure Win7 wiped the MBR or something right? It's also installed and
written a bunch of dirs but no files b/c I assume that's what I prevented
when I aborted the process at 1%...
So I tried fixboot and copying over ntldr and ntdetect.com from WinXP but I
am apparently trying to fix a Win7 install (since as mentioned there's no
Doc Settings dir like in XP, but a Users dir, which I'm sure is Win7
right?)...
So don't I need to do something with some sort of repair program to try and
figure this out (i.e. fixing the MBR and stuff) or is my data all lost at
this point? Thoughts?
BINO
-----Original Message-----
From: hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com
[mailto:hardware-boun...@hardwaregroup.com] On Behalf Of Richard Quilhot
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 8:30 PM
To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com
Subject: Re: [H] Need MAJOR help with fubar'ed WinXP install
If it's just data files your after you can do a new install of xp.
Just make sure you pick the do not format option.
If you don't need the oridginal xp info you can overwrite the windows
directory, otherwise specify
a different location. Once installed, copy your data off drive.
Next option is to boot from a live linux cd/dvd & transfer your data, then
do your fresh install.
Richard E. Quilhot C.N.A.
quilh...@gmail.com
Stephen
Leacock<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stephen_leacock.html>
- "I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some
day
die, which is not so."
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 10:58 PM, Bino Gopal <binogo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hey guys, so I think I majorly screwed up my WinXP install on my IBM T61
> laptop and am *hoping* (I think against all hope at this point) that I can
> at least recover the data on the HD, if not even fix the WinXP install.
So
> here's what happened:
>
>
>
> I had a normal working WinXP SP2 install on my laptop. I have a USB key
> from work with Win7 Enterprise on it, and apparently it's a bootable,
> SELF-INSTALLING image of Win7 (the bootable, self-installing part will
> become key in a second).
>
>
>
> My plan was to grab all my data off of the laptop and back it up and then
> install Win7 on it. The laptop is having issues where it loses internet
> access (which gets fixed on reboot) so w/o thinking about it, I rebooted
it
> with the USB key still attached! *sigh*
>
>
>
> So of course the laptop boots up off the key (and I'm not paying attention
> right then) and Win7 starts the setup process (no prompts too; it just
> goes!!), and it's about 30 secs or so, and it gets to a point where it
> opens
> a cmd window and starts showing percentages and it gets to 1% and then I
> close the cmd window by hitting the X in the top right corner and that
> restarts my computer.
>
>
>
> It said it was doing some stuff before that and maybe I should've stopped
> it
> a little sooner but I was afraid I'd screw things up if I stopped it in
the
> middle of redo'ing partitions or something, but once I saw the percentages
> I
> figured I'd better stop it sooner rather than later.
>
>
>
> In any case it rebooted and came up with "windload.exe is missing".
That's
> when I started troubleshooting. So here's what I did:
>
>
>
> 1) Put in my IBM rescue and recovery CD (which took a while to load;
I
> don't think it was doing anything to my install, though it's possible, but
> seems unlikely) and looked at the options but decided nothing there would
> help me.
>
> 2) So then I found and put in my WinXP CD and got to its blue screen,
> and started the recovery console. I read some stuff so I did "fixboot"
and
> restarted.
>
> 3) Then I got the "ntldr is missing" message. So reading some more I
> copied ntldr and ntdetect.com from the winXP CD to c:\ using the recovery
> console and restarted.
>
> 4) THEN I got the "hal.dll is missing or corrupt" error message this
> time! Read even more and I tried to expand the file from the recovery
> console but got an error (which is weird)! No idea why that happened and
> that's when I paused and decided to take stock and ask for help and not
> make
> things worse.
>
>
>
> At this point, I went back to the recovery console and looked at my HD and
> that's when I got the sinking feeling... I don't see a lot of the dirs I
> expect in WinXP, and all the dirs have a date of 01/02/10, and there's no
> Doc Settings dir, but a Users dir, but my username isn't there and it
looks
> like somehow Win7 wiped the disk and started the install in like 30 secs
or
> something!! How did it do that?! I also noticed the dirs are there, but
> no
> files in any of the dirs, which looks like an aborted install of Win7.
>
>
>
> So at this point, is there any way to recover my data? Do I need to send
> my
> HD to Tim or can I use a program to recover stuff (assuming it's not
> overwritten)? I'm hoping that I can get the data but give it to me
> straight; if I'm screwed, then let me know so I can stop wasting my time
> trying to recover it, and just write the data off as lost and move on.
>
>
>
> Thanks so much for any help guys, and Happy New Year!!
>
>
>
>
> BINO
>
>
>
>
