Begging For Help...

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I skim read and saw alot of people saying HDD error. Well if you want to check the HD get this. Its an ultimate boot cd with lots of diagnostic tools on it, including HDD manufactor tools.

 

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Good morning guys. Thanks for all the suggestions made over night. My first boot this morning saw the system lock up before it had finished loading all my startup software but Im currently downloading Norton Utilities and a diagnostic prog from my HDD manufacturer.

Will run these programs and see what they find and Ill let you know how its going.

 

Yep bluerinse is right ! I had to reformat my system, hard to tell if your registry is bad from some dodgy editing or hard disk error.

In my case was a bad sector, a full reformat will test the sectors and mark bad sectors so they are not used. It's worth testing the disk just in case it is duff, sometimes theres problems with the heads. However sectors do go bad so it might just be a bad sector.

 

Have just finished running all of the HDD diagnostic tools and there were no errors returned on the disk.

Will try a few from the Norton Utils now but since my original crash this morning Ive been running fine.

 

Im going for a full format and re-install of XP. If it goes trouble free I'll be back soon to update but with my current luck I'll post sometime next week.

Again I cant thank you all enough for the help and advice youve given me.

 

I cant even format this poxy thing - I feel like a total idiot. Going through the Start->Run option wont let me format and using my OEM disk wont work. Does anyone know where I would get a copy of the SECURITY file thats apparently missing or corrupt so that I can put that in place and see if my OEM disk works then please?

 

Well theres loads different boot disks you could create, linux, dos, NTFS based ones. Hippy posted a link to one largely dos based boot CD. You OEM disk should allow you to get to a dos like recovery console normally. Alternatively you could try other boot disks either on floopies, CD, memstick. If you haven't created these in the past you may need to get hold of another working PC ! Did you create a rescue disk for XP ?

You generally don't want to format from within windows, windows locks certain files and generally won't like having the rug ripped from under it. You need to run a program that isn't actively managing or running from the hard disk. Like I said there should be something on the OEM disk to do this, I suspect you keep picking the wrong option, if you pick the right option the system hive shouldn't even get looked at, this is read when you are trying to boot windows off you HD !

 

Ive tried a few different bootdisks including the one that hippy suggested and still I get nothing. When using my OEM disk to boot from at startup I get the option to load recovery or start windows. Loading recovery option starts and I get a PC Angel - System Recovery splash screen before going to the blue screen with the error message in my first post.

I cant get hold of any XP disks as everyone Ive asked also has OEM systems and the only PC I have access to other than this is a laptop thats not connected to the net.

 

The file called 'SECURITY' that the error message says is missing or corrupt is on my system in the right location but I cant do anything with it as access is denied.

 

Just discovered the file is there but in a different location. The OEM recovery is looking for:
system\system32\config\SECURITY
My SECURITY file is actually located in:
\system32\config\SECURITY

My system and system32 folders are in the same location so I tried to put a copy of system32 into the system folder but it denies me access and wont paste several of the files in there including SECURITY

 

I'm guessing your tried Norton Disk Doctor, System Doctor and WinDoctor (this is the one I normally use)?

I doubt very much that Norton Utilities will help anyway.

If you could get access to a Caddy Case (external hdd holder connects via USB) and put your HDD in that, then try using your laptop to format the drive like a normal 'Removable Disk' drive, I would guess that could work as you would be using windows on your laptop HDD not the External, that way you wouldn't be ripping anything from under it etc. If you can't get a Caddy Case maybe you could get hold of a 2nd pc? one of your friend maybe? then put it in and set it as slave/not 1st priority boot and do it that way?

Just an idea..

P.S the Caddy Cases are ~£15 on amazon/ebuyer/ebay etc.

 

You should be to format the drive from the manufacturers HDD utility mate.

 

I thought so too Raffaz but nope. I reboot with the CD in and I get the option to load windows or restore. Loading windows does as it says on the tin and restore just takes me to the blue screen and error message. All the recovery files from my CD are actually on a partition of my HDD too and trying to run the restore from that gets me the same results.

 

Well this would be where i would 'acquire' another windows CD.

 

Are you refering to the HDD manufacturers diagnostic tools here? What brand is your HDD?

 

A low level manufacturers format is overkill, he just needs an XP boot disk or similar. Reformat using a high level format tool of choice using either FAT32 or NTFS (NTFS reccomended). Then reinstall from original XP OS CD.

It appears your machine distibutor may have stiched you up by not providing original OS software on CD ?

 

It doesnt matter how he formats it at the end of the day, as long as he gets the job done. His OEM disc isnt working and the diagnostic tool for his HDD is free and will get the job done aswell.

 

The system came with a partition already on the HDD (Western Digital Caviar 80gb)with basically a copy of the OEM disk copied to it but again I cant access any other options other than what Ive said so far.

On the upside though, the system has become more stable - it hasnt frozen once on me yet today so fingers crossed it may have settled down.

 

You can get the diagnostic tools for WD from here http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3

From what your sying it sounds like they have installed a recovery partition on your HDD, if your having problems accessing that then it seems even more likely that its a problem with your HDD.

 

Thanks for all your help guys - you lot are brilliant

System has now been fully restored and is running fine after I managed to explain the problem to the guys at eMachines. It took them 5 days to get back to me but better late than never I suppose.

What I had to do was when I booted up my system with the OEM CD in, at the option to restore I had to press ctrl and backspace. This gave me another set of options where I could erase all info off my HDD and then my OS installed automatically.

Again a great bug thank you to all that helped me and came up with suggestions.