Windows Logon problem

[Wolf00]

The topic is a little misleading. I am having a problem logging on to my computer, but it's not quite that simple. When I got home from work today, my computer (one of them, anyway) had this error on the screen :

The system cannot log you on due to the following error:

Unable to complete the requested operation because of either a catastrophic media failure or a data structure corruption on the disk.

Please try again or consult your system administrator.

BTW, I hate how MS always puts that "consult your system administrator" crap in their error messages. What happens if I am the system administrator and I still don't know what to do? Who do I consult with? I guess that's why I'm here.

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP1 (and have been for quite a while). This computer has been up and running for at least a few months now and I haven't installed any new hardware or software in the last few weeks, so nothing new has caused this problem.
I've got my computer setup to auto-login so that's why the error was on the screen when I got home. It was at the login prompt.
Here is what I've tried in my attempts to figure out what is going on:
I clicked OK and tried to actually type my password in, same error.
I tried logging in as the administrator, same error.
I tried booting in to safe mode, same error.

The only references I've been able to find so far on the web are in the list of error codes (btw, technically this is error 1358 if that helps) and one reference to a problem with SQL server in which was fixed by rebuilding the catalog. I'm not quite sure what catalog that person was referring to, but I would assume it is SQL related because he could still actually get into his computer. I haven't found any reference to this error in the same context as mine (during login).

I tried booting off the CD and entering repair mode, but I didn't see anything in there that looked like it would help. I ran chkdsk on the system partition (I've only got one hard drive with two partitions) and it said the disk looked fine so it didn't run. I'm in the process of forcing it to run and to check for bad sectors, etc.

I hope I have provided enough information here to allow somebody out there to help me. If anybody needs anymore information about my setup or has any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks

 

[tennesota]

Originally posted by: Wolf00

I tried booting off the CD and entering repair mode, but I didn't see anything in there that looked like it would help.

Why would you not try using the Repair option if it was available to you? By the way, I have never seen this error before.

 

[Wolf00]

What exactly should I repair? As I said, I booted off the WinXP CD, chose repair instead of setup, but I couldn't find anything in the command line interface that would help me.

 

[NogginBoink]

Try running chkdsk from the recovery console.

 

[tennesota]

The XP Setup screen is not where you tell the system to perform a repair, that repair option listed on the Setup screen is strictly for using the Recovery Console.

Press enter to start the Windows Setup program, press F8 to accept the license agreement, Windows will then search for your current installation. Once it locates your installation you will have an option to 'repair' your install. The repair will take you through steps that look like a clean install but once it is done hopefully you will be able to log into the system.

 

[Wolf00]

I've tried the repair option. I get the following error:

Setup cannot get the required Windows XP configuration information.

This indicates an internal Setup error.

Contact your system administrator.


I like this last part the most, since I am the system administrator. It's as if system administrators are given some special handbook or something. These are the messages that piss me off the most.

 

[EeyoreX]

I have never seen this error. But, it sounds like a bad hard drive. Perhaps try a different cable and see if that fixes your problem. Try the hard drive in another machine as a slave and see if you can access the files. If neither of these options works, I'd say your hard drive somehow got FUBAR'd

And, since Windows XP Pro was primarily designed for an office environment, "Consult your system administrator" was a safe error message, as it was assumed the OS would more than likely be in a corporate setting with an IT staff and administrator to consult. Not that that is much consolation, but the likely reason for it's inclusion.

\Dan

 

[Wolf00]

I didn't feel like messing with it anymore, so I just re-installed WinXP. Since I'm writing this reply on the new installation, I don't think there is a problem with the hard drive. I still don't know what happened, since I know everything was fine Friday morning, then the sh*t hit the fan sometime during the day Friday. I've got my hard drive partitioned with all my data on D, so when I wiped out C during the installation, I didn't lose anything (except my profile, but that's not a big deal cuz my docs are on D). In my spare time (like I really have any), I'll keep looking for any other reference to that error and see what I get.

Dan,
I understand that WinXP was meant for Corp environment and thus the direction to consult with sys admin in the error messages, but at some point, there needs to be some in-depth explantion of what happened so the sys admin can fix it. Having used windows since win3.1, I'm quite used to the cryptic error messages from MS, but I can still complain about it I just find a little more humor in them now that I am a sys admin and I don't know what to do with some of the errors and all they say is contact your sys admin.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep checking back here for a few more days to see if anybody else has come up with any solutions or if anybody has actually seen this error before. I won't be able to test any suggested solutions, but it would be nice to see if there is actually anybody that has seen this error before. From my searching on Google, I couldn't find ANY reference to this particular error.