Windows could not start , the following file is missing..

[AMDBOY]

Seems my system suggests to try r for repair. Try that and it can't see my (raid 0) hard drives. When I try to boot raid drivers from floppy, it doesn't see floppy. WTF? I played UT just fine and a few hors later it won't boot. When system starts up, shouldn't I see the little light on the floppy come to life & blink at least once. I tried another floppy & still no light on boot. Maybe a controller gone bad. Is it possible to retrieve data from these two hard drives after I do a clean install on a 3rd stand alone fresh drive? tia. I'm hosed.

 

[AMDBOY]

Why yes , as though it seems you are hosed!

 

[John]

Set the boot sequence in the bios to boot from floppy first, then cd, then raid. Make sure the floppy is enabled. Now try booting to a floppy disk to see if it works. If it immediately goes to the cd your floppy drive may be defective, a bad cable, or a bad controller.

Once you solve your floppy issue you boot to the XP cd and tap f6 at the blue screen, then setup will ask you to hit 's' to specify mass storage and that's when you instert the floppy raid drivers.

 

[pcgeek11]

Here is the link explaining how you have to recover. Your registry is screwed and you need to know how to recover. There are links on that page also print them all to have a reference when recovering.

http://support.microsoft.com/?KBID=269075

pcgeek

 

[AMDBOY]

Thanks guys.I will have to try the correct sequence.I did get an old hd to boot the system up and tried repair.Before this I could not get the floppy to work or a spare.Will have to go back in & make sure it is enabled, (in bios, correct?). I did that. Now that system boots, in device mgr. it shows unknown hardware. I deleted them hoping it would find & install them upon rebooting. That worked to a degree, it finds them, but still needs drivers & doesn't recognize them. I'll have to dig out the Epox mainboard disc with the raid drivers, as well as the VGA drivers. I hope that when the raid controller gets the proper drivers, it will see the raid 0 array and I can access my data and b/u it better this time. Gotta sleep. Thanks a million for your input guys, really appreciate it. It's been quite a while since I've done setup & reinstall.Tia.

 

[Smilin]

Please do not reinstall just yet! This is a very recoverable problem in most cases.

Do a search for this topic in the forum. I swear I've written a thesis on how to recover from this by now.

 

[postmortemIA]

it can be recovered, but all software that relies on registry will be hosed (including drivers). all you can do is backup registry from day of original installation.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
it can be recovered, but all software that relies on registry will be hosed (including drivers). all you can do is backup registry from day of original installation.

mmm, this isn't exacly correct. I suppose it could be in some of the worst case scenarios.

If you have ever run a single system state backup your repair folder will have newer hives that the original install ones. Also system resore is packed with recent good copies of the registry on most systems. Also it only takes a single misplaced bit to stop a boot, but such damage can be repaired easily and automatically simply by loading a hive into a XP/2003 version of regedit then unloading it. Heck you could have a perfectly intact registry but MFT damage (chkdsk /p for the win!) preventing it from being read.

Seriously, go search on this before you do anything drastic. Easily recoverable in MOST cases I tell ya.

The machine I'm typing on right now was "dead" from this error once

 

[Smilin]

here, try this one instead of the one PCGeek mentioned above:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us

XP has many more reccovery options available than Windows 2000 did.

 

[pcgeek11]

Originally posted by: Smilin
here, try this one instead of the one PCGeek mentioned above:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/en-us

XP has many more reccovery options available than Windows 2000 did.

Damn I pasted the wrong KB Article... Thanks for the correction..

Anyway like you stated Smilin easy to recover from if you do the homework first...

Too many take the " reinstall route " first without looking for an answer. If he has a good restore point there shouldn't be any need to reinstall any applications or drivers. I've done this recovery method too, many times.

pcgeek11

 

[Smilin]

Yeah, XP is more recoverable but they yanked out the "create emergency repair disk" option in ntbackup so you have to kick off then cancel a system state backup to get the repair folder to update. Irritating.

I guess as long as you don't (foolishly) disable system restore points it doesn't matter.

 

[pcgeek11]

I guess as long as you don't (foolishly) disable system restore points it doesn't matter.

Lots of people do this also I don't know why... Then blame Microsoft when everything gets hosed up and they cannot recover. I'll never understand.

pcgeek11

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: pcgeek11

I guess as long as you don't (foolishly) disable system restore points it doesn't matter.

Lots of people do this also I don't know why... Then blame Microsoft when everything gets hosed up and they cannot recover. I'll never understand.

pcgeek11

Because it takes up harddrive space and takes longer to install (some) programs as they set restore points. At least that's the rationale I've been hearing.

Regardless, I've had two methods of success clearing this issue. #1 was doing a Repair install from the Windows Media. #2 was starting the system with ERD and then simply rebooting (ERD will "touch" the registry on login).

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: pcgeek11

I guess as long as you don't (foolishly) disable system restore points it doesn't matter.

Lots of people do this also I don't know why... Then blame Microsoft when everything gets hosed up and they cannot recover. I'll never understand.

pcgeek11

Because it takes up harddrive space and takes longer to install (some) programs as they set restore points. At least that's the rationale I've been hearing.

Regardless, I've had two methods of success clearing this issue. #1 was doing a Repair install from the Windows Media. #2 was starting the system with ERD and then simply rebooting (ERD will "touch" the registry on login).

Yeah, the people that don't use it typically have one stupid or non-applicable excuse after another similar to those.

space:
It only takes as much drive space as you allow with the slider.
You can trim it down to a single restore point with the disk cleanup wizard.
You can stop running windows on a 10GB hard drive.

performance:
Go create a repair point manually. It will be finished almost before you can lift your finger after clicking go.