Please HELP me repair Windows XP O.S.

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by Billy T, Jun 14, 2007.

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  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    If you do not have time and interest to read what I have tried, PLEASE jump to my QUESTIONS section at the end.

    CONDITIONS and what I have tried:

    Portable crashed and will not start, but displays msg giving choices of trying to start in:
    "Safe Mode," (SM hereafter)
    SM with networking
    SM with cmd prompt
    Last known good configuration
    Normal start up mode

    None of the five choices above worked. Only produced following msg:
    Can not start because:
    WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is missing or corrupted.

    Followed by a note to use original O.S. CD, and to strike key <R> with first screen after this O.S. CD was active, which I did.

    Soon I will tell what happened but first note that macnine is HP Pavilion ze4900us and for small fraction of second, just after pwr up, I am given choices:
    <ESC> will change boot order
    <F12> to boot from LAN
    <F10> to enter "setup" (which I did.)
    There the default page gives system information, serial # etc. With right arror key I stepped over to "TOOLS" and found option for "Hard Drive self test" which produced three test "PASS results" in about 65 minutes. I.e. passed the "quick test", the "comprehensive test" and the " (S.M.A.R.T.)test"

    After O.S. CD was activated and <R> key struck the "Recovery Console" screen appears. I was told two things:
    (1)Type EXIT to quit and restart computer. (in bottom bar as I recall)
    and
    (2) (Exactly as it appeared on screen. Note the ? appears where shown, not after "onto" of first line.)

    1: C:\Windows

    Which Windows installation would you like to log onto
    (To cancell, press ENTRY)? #

    (End of2's as displayed on screen)

    Note "#" is actually a small white box in which only a single charater can be entered. I entered 1 in that box, as think the line "1: C:\Windows" is a list of length one. I followed the entry of my 1 with <ENTER> key and immediately was displayed the cmd prompt:
    C:\WINDOWS>
    As the HP user's guide said repair could take 1 to 2 hours to complete and after complete, the notebook restarts in Windows, I waited 4 hours and nothing happend. I.e. the cmd prompt was still being displayed.
    (As neither after all 5 failed to start msg suggestions to use to O.S. CD & <R> nor the user's guide mentioned the "Which Windows...." question I also did only hit the <R> and waited 4 hours, with machine still waiting for me to select from my list of length one.)

    If hit <ENTER> when the " C:\WINDOWS> " (either with or without entering 1 in the box followed by <ENTER> ) is on screen, then a second line repeats the cmd prompt. I recognized it as a cmd prompt from my old "DOS days", so I typed HELP followed by <ENTER> and got list of cmds (all 6 letter or less). I then typed: CHKDSK and was told following infromation:
    58597052 Kilobits total disk space
    45934700 Kilobits are available
    4096 bits in each allocation unit. (plus two lines more which just gave first two lines again, but in terms of allocation units)

    As I had not used the optional forward slice P with the CHKDSK cmd, I was only told that disk C:\ was OK. (based on the absent of a not OK flag, I think. Have not yet forced CHKDSK to check in detail because of the 3 "PASS" test results HP's at start up <F10> TOOLS check of disk. )

    As nothing seem to be helpful, I went back to activate the O.S. CD's but did not hit <R>. Instead hit <ENTER> to allow WINDOWS's XP SETUP to "set up XP now." This produced the following results (after hitting <F8> to accept MS's license agreement):
    A large box with three lines of information with 2nd and 3d being about the partitian of the hard drive.(the first of these two being the "default selection") and some text telling that that <C> would "create a partitian in the Unpartitian space" & <D> would "delete the selected partition" & <ENTER> would set up XP on the seleted item (in the large box)

    The large box contained:

    57232 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on Bus 0 atapi [MBR]

    C: Partition 1 [NTFS] 57224 MB (44858 MB free)
    Unpartitioned space 8 MB

    (End of display of large box contents) Note these numbers not exactly same as others. <C> does nothing on the default selected main block of partitianed space, so I used arrow keys to change the "selected item" to 8 MB and then <C> returns msg that 8 MB is too small to install XP and tells that the 8 MB is "reserved for XP partition information." With almost nothing else to try, I restore selected item to the main block of space and fearful of losing all files, hit <ENTER>. This produced the following warning msg:
    "Installing WINDOWS on this partitian might cause OTHER O.S. to function improperly." (and comment that this was not recommended, but if I wanted to do "press <C>") I made the word "other" all caps. I did not "press <C>" - Instead I am now asking some questions:

    QUESTIONS:
    (1) As the "OTHER" O.S. is already inoperative, it seems to me that I could go ahead and install second XP home edition O.S. on the main block of space. I.e. get to where I can "press <C>" again and do it. Comments ?

    (2) If I do install XP on the large block, do you think I may have access to my files that must be there as there is no other partitian where they could be? I think HP may have given me an O.S. CD which sets up old DOS only, not the XP I paid for and as it claims to do, but will know more if I try to install it with this "Press <C>" cmd.

    (3) Is it better to return to the DOS C:\WINDOWS> prompt cmd and try to remember some of the more important file names ? (I.e. use C:\WINDOWS> TYPE filename and then copy down by hand the most critical information.)

    (4) If (3) has chance to work, clearly it is safe to try before doing (2). Are there any other old DOS type cmds that might be useful, before doing (2)? I.e. I am open to all suggestions that may give access to some of my old files.
    I am resigned to the possibility that I have lost many photos, but think it may be possible to recover some text. My last back-up is more than a year old - I KNOW Better now.

    (5) Also I was once told that in a Windows partitianed physical drive, all the O.S.s in the different partitians can access the single "My Documents" folder. Is this correct? If so I think that in the future I will not keep many folders on the desk top, but instead put everything (manily other folders) into "My Documents" folder. Is this a good policy?

    Thanks for any help (even comments that only correct my understanding).
    And a word from the now wiser Billy T: Back up often.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2007
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  3. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    There's no option to repair a windows installation on the disk?

    You should be able to install XP on the main partition, the warning about other OS not working doesn't apply to Windows since it'll simply re-install all the XP files that are already there. You won't lose any files on the hard drive by trying.

    4) Well IF the Windows reinstall doesn't work (doubt it, because it should) then the best way to save your files is to plug the hard drive into a different computer that works. Set the jumpers on the back of the hard drive to Slave, plug it in and let the computer boot up normally from its own drive. Once Windows starts you should be able to access the files on the hard drive with the broken Windows installation.

    5) That depends on which OS you're using and how the partitions are formatted. Some OS can only read certain file systems, like Windows can only recognize NTFS, FAT32 and FAT file systems. Linux can use others, and if it does Windows won't be able to look into the Linux partition. As long as you make sure all the partitions are formatted using a file system all your operating systems can read then there should be no problem accessing files anywhere on the disk with any OS.
     
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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for your reply. You have lifted my spirits already. hope you are correct - it seems logical to me that the re-install of the original O.S. could just write to the same space on drive where the now defective copy is, but it also seems logically possible that the new XP installation might just look for a continuous block of un-used space and then the "boot up" never finds the good copy - but only tries to run the first it finds, which could be the defective one. COMMENTS ANYONE ?

    As to your opening question, I think the only option now is the re-installation of XP´s O.S., which I have been avoiding (probably excessively cautious in my ignorance to be sure not to destroy about 100 high value files.) I think I have tried everything under the "repair" options (hit <R> when the O.S. CD is active, etc.) as described in post 1.

    I will continue using wife's machine, probably thru Sunday afternoon to see if anyone less has ideas, or confirms your suggestion. If I need to remove HD and install in other machine I will hire a professional. I may also get back to the C:\ windows> command and try the "TYPE filename" cmd to copy down a few things like passwords, IDs etc. by hand that I have in my "computer related" folder.

    I really hope I can recover files. I have more than 75 files on small drug development companies, complete with the slides each presented at many different scientific and investor conferences.

    It is an amazing age we live in. Once while the talk was still going on in San Francisco, I bought (from my home in Brazil) 100 shares in the presenter's company, before the talk was over.* - Probably before the people in the room could as their cell phones were off, by request.
    ---------------------------
    *He was apolozing for not having the data the abstract had promissed about the still "un-blinded" double-blind study. It could not be "un-blinded" until the pre-specified number of patients had died, which was strongly expected to be the case before the meeting, when the abstract had been written. I immediately thought this delay must indicate a very effective drug as only half the very sick patients were getting it, yet the average survival time of ALL the patients was significantly extended. I was the owner of 100sh of his company 4 minutes after his appology. I had not even heard of the company 15 minutes earlier! The stock did go up about 15% in next two days, but is back down again. Small drug developers are about as risky as it gets. Why I am diversified into more than 40 of the 75 I follow.)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2007
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  7. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Yes you probably have to reinstall as xelios said(be careful to not reformat the partition - it is somewhat easy to make that mistake with XP).

    What happened was your registry file for "system" puked. It is possible to restore and older "hive", however, esp if your system restore was turned on. That is what I would do, but then I know how to reload all the drivers - which you might have to do if the system hive puked and you only have the original backup(created when xp was first installed). Fixing this problem will save you having to reinstall all your software.

    It is a vendor PC(hp/dell/etc)? Sometimes they have restore CDs which at easily allow a restore along with software it came with AND keep data.
     
  8. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks to you for both your posts. I will read some of the MS links inside this link soon, especially the one about how to copy to removable media with the recovery console.

    My software was already installed when I bought the machine, which came with the O.S. install and recovery CD. There was also another "CD" supplied by HP called "Application and Driver Recovery DVD" so I probably have all the drivers I could need etc. (I put it in, but it did not seem to do anything and the other CD did, as the user's guide said it would, open a page with one of the 3 options being Hit <R> key to recover, so I ceased using the DVD CD.)

    Very glad you also think I can safely re-install XP in the big (and only) partitianed block of drive C (Called "partitian 1"). Do you know if the boot will find it instead of the old defective O.S.? It is logically possible that the re-install does not "over write" the old start up section of the drive. (My worry, also given in post 3 just before COMMENTS ANYONE, is based on experience in the "old DOS days" when one made a "recovery disk." - I seem to recall that that disk could already have non-system files written on it "before" the system recovery code.) I.e. will the XP re-install "overwrite" old start up system files or go into currently unused space? If "probably no overwrite," will the boot always find the re-installed version?

    Again thanks for your link. It is intemidating, but very informative and right on my problem.

    PS I know "format" makes a disk "virgin again" - some ladies would like a re-format option

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    (I think a surgen can do.)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2007
  10. redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    7,658
    Got a printer hooked up, Billy?

    Type [FILENAME] > PRN

    may send it to the printer (replace [FILENAME] with the filename, of course - including the full path if it's not in the current folder).

    I take it's not got a floppy disk, so you can't COPY *.* A: ?
     
  11. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    If you re-install, the recovery CD should make it very easy(i've not used Dell recovery CDs) it should be bootable and say in plain english -

    "recover OS"(or Windows XP reinstall something like) - save data

    Reinstall - factory condition(or somesuch) - LOOSE data

    There might be repair options too. Sometimes these are helpful.
     
  12. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    I tried to visit all of the three numbered and underlined links at end of this link, but they do not function as links. So, I began to read the link its self more carefully. I have some questions and want to test what I think I understand from it.

    I now believe:
    (1) that there is in computer´s memory a "Repair folder," which has a backup copy of the "hive" made at the very first start up of XP.
    (2) that I can use the C:\Windows> cmd prompt (hereafter just "cmd prompt") of the "Recovery Console" to cause this first hive to replace the now defective one. (I have already used the cmd prompt HELP cmd to get list of valid cmds and cmd prompt CHKDSK cmd.)

    I think:
    (1) I will later need to confirm this "back up hive" does exist (in the "repair folder" but I do not now know where that folder is - the path to it.) by doing some cmd prompt CD cmds, followed finally by a DIR cmd, but first he tells to determine if \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file exists and if it does, to rename it.

    (2) That should solve my worry about the boot finding the old defective system start up files, instead of the re-installed ones, so I think I should do this much even if I only re-install XP . (Later, if all is well, I can delete the defective file with the new name I gave it.)

    Fortunately, I still have old DOS6.3 cmd reference book so the rename cmd (given at the cmd prompt) could be:
    REN C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG oldname newname <enter>
    were "oldname" in this case is: "system" (but I am confused as in his 2d step below he does a "DIR system" cmd. Is there a folder called "system" for this DIR cmd AND a file in it called "system" for his step 3 rename below?

    He suggest this be done, in three steps, as follows {I presume while at the cmd prompt}:

    (1) Type cd system32\config , and then press ENTER.

    (2) Type dir system , and then press ENTER.

    (3) ...If you can run the preceding command successfully, type ren system system.bak , and then press ENTER.

    and I will follow his suggestion, except I like "deadsys.bak" better than his "system.bak" as the new name. Perhaps when I do the DIR cmd of step 2, I will learn that the "Repair" folder is there also (and with the "back up hive" file visible in it after one more CD and one more DIR cmds). I may also clarify my confusion by finding that yes, there is both a folder called system with a file in it also called system that I rename to deadsys.bak.

    Any comments or problems with this plan to at least remane "system" file to "deadsys.bak" file
     
  13. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    23,198
    Yes I have printer, but it has been out of ink for a week or so - not used much.

    I thank you also for your comments and suggestions. They accidently help me with my immediate concerns as I looked up "Type" in my old DOS6.3 book and cmd before it is "Tree" which with switchs /f and |more will show a directory tree with the list of files in it. (It can also go to printer via terminal >PRN)

    Must leave house now to pick up wife - back later.

    Again thanks to all - Once again computer smart people at sciforums have been much mofre helpful than HP's technical support. who said you can not teach an old dog like me new tricks?

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    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 15, 2007
  14. RubiksMaster Real eyes realize real lies Registered Senior Member

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    I would say if you have important things you don't want to risk losing (you said you had a lot of photos), you should take out your hard drive and plug it into a different computer (as a secondary drive of course). Then you can boot up with a copy of windows that works, and save your files to that drive. The drive is obviously still good, it's only the boot-up files that are bad. Thus, you should have no problem copying your files.

    That way, if the installation disc messes up your recovery, or you get misled into choosing the "format and reinstall" option, you won't lose all your data. This is what I recommend doing, because it will give you a plan to fall back on. It's an easy procedure, and it could save you a lot of grief later. There's nothing worse than realizing you lost a year's worth of important files.

    After you back up your stuff onto a good hard drive, you can just pop in the disc and there will be an option that says "repair existing installation." This should work. As far as I know, it will only overwrite your system files, and leave everything else intact.

    In my experience, when it overwrites it, it will do one of two things:
    1) It could directly overwrite your "windows" directory (and only that directory), thus placing a clean install right over the top of the bad install. You will lose anything that was in that directory, which probably won't be much, because you probably don't make a habit of placing data into the system directories. Your registry will be overwritten, and you'll have to reinstall most of your programs (but your personal data should remain).

    2) It could rename your current windows directory to "windows.old" and then proceed to install on unused space. It would then recreate the master boot record, so that it knows how to find the new installation.

    Thus, no matter what you do, it will not have trouble finding the right installation.

    I hope this helps at all.
     
  15. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    4,924
    You're doomed.... get another PC
     
  16. domesticated om Stickler for details Valued Senior Member

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    3,277
    Assuming you didn't feel like going through the trouble of prying open your computer, and yanking out the hard drive,--another option you have is downloading knoppix (a free linux live CD distro) and obtaining a 2 gig or 4 gig USB flash drive.

    You can boot knoppix, put in the flash drive, copy/paste all the files you want to keep onto it, then reboot and format/clean install.


    This method is also handy if you have a spare USB hard drive laying around
    ---another note--- you can also do this using the Ubuntu live CD
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2007
  17. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    17,455
    you can also do the same thing with XP (live CD).
    the question i have is why is his HDD partitioned as 57 gig/ 8 meg?
     
  18. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    13,105
    I'm guessing the 8mb is classed as "unused space" however in reality it's been set aside for one reason or another. Perhaps damaged areas, perhaps to deal with any hard-drive limitations by the controller etc.

    I've seen the same thing occur on a number of drives I've installed various OS's on, so it's not something to worry about.
     
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    23,198
    If "doomed," it will just go bad too, so no thanks. I will fix broken one.

    If I can, perhaps will:
    (1) First try to copy out critical files (or at least critical data in them, by hand if necessary).
    (2) Second try to remove drive and open in different computer which will write to CDs.

    Note both (1) & (2) can not make software errors (I assume all recent drives all use the same voltages, pin connections, etc., but this is only an assumption still, not known fact yet.)

    (3) If I get all that is really important safely onto CDs, then probably I will just let the "Recovery Console" due its re-install tricks (rather than try to follow link www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm instructions).

    See you when we met in Hell.

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  20. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Billy that is a sound plan. Even if you were able to get a "backup" system hive file(again probably have one from when XP was first installed), it might be a lot of work to get the system back in good shape - driverwise.

    After you have renamed the defunct system file and are in:

    c:\Windows\system32\config
    If you cannot do this command:
    copy c:\windows\repair\system
    Then you have no backup.

    At this point you really have nothing to lose in trying that. If it copies the file then you might as well fire it up and see what happens probably you will boot up and the system will seem screwy(drivers will all need to be reloaded).

    The knoppix boot key is a cool idea I have used a bootable CD before in the same manner to copy data.

    The DOS manual is worth it's weight in GOLD in some circles.

    Anyways, very impressive job so far. It is admirable you want to fix it, there really is a lot of people whom would just buy another one these days. There is absolutely nothing physically wrong in this case, and I find that notion a huge waste. Probably what happened is you suffered a bad shutdown or freeze up(for a multitude of reasons) and the system file got corrupt.

    I re-read some of your first post and see that you tried the chkdsk command, did you try it with the /f flag. chkdsk /f will fix all errors. Sometimes with one file corrupted it will not detect it with a regular chkdsk command. You should also try with /r which locates bad sectors and recovers readable information. I have fixed all too many arcane problems with a simple chkdsk command. Amazing how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
     
  21. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    23,198
    that sounds like a great idea. Thanks. I do not have any big files, so even multiple uses of a small USB external solid state menory can be used.

    I had not read your post when responding to DarkSide (agreeing to met later in Hell, etc.) but think this is an alternative to consider as the first thing to do.

    I put unquely named file on the desktop of this computer and then search for it (most files I need are in folders on the desktop) to learn the path to the desktop (For doing with recovery console's cmd prompt a DIR on the desktop to learn the exact names on the desktop.)

    This computer is quite new. Wife has not used it much and only user is the "administrador" On this computer, the path to desktop is:

    C:\Administrador\desktop

    It probably will be necessary to guess my user ID or perhaps spell Administrador in English, not Portugese, if the desktop is "owned" by the administrator. (Note "t" replacing her "d") but with a little completely safe work, I should learn names of all the folders (and the file names in them) on the desktop.

    Most of my photos are in HP's software (called "image Zone") storage system I once made brief unsuccessful effort to find where they actually are - I.e. the path to the folder they presumably are in. If anyone else used HP's Image Zone to organize their photos knows the path to the real storage locations, that would be very helpful. (I think that image zone must assign file names to each photo because when I searched for my names of the photos, none were found.)
     
  22. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    Thanks, but if I have O.S. in the CD drive, I will not be able to write to clean CDs in that same drive. Thus will need to still do domesticated om's or Rubic's suggestions anyway.

    Far as your question about the 57 vs 8etc, I am reminded of joke:

    Lady is telling her newly hired maid how to use subway, train and buses to come from her distant home to where she will work for lady: "First walk to... then take train D to ... getting off at... and walk only 3 block SW to get bus E2... getting off at..." etc for several more steps, when the potential new maid interupts with:

    "Lady, if I could do that, I would not be a maid."

    If I could answer your question, my broken computer would already be fixed.

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  23. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks again for your continuing interest, suggestions and comments. It is really appreciated.

    I am a little confused by the sentence above I made bold above. It seems to contradict those preceeding and immediately following. I.e. all your text prior to "The knoppix boot...". I think this text is telling me NOT to rename. (No backup, must reload drivers etc.)
    I also have developed a strong fear that my earlier idea of first renaming the system file "deadsys.bak" may be a terrilble idea. It seems at least logically possible that the Repair Console will go look for the system file, not find it, quit and then write msg to effect "Not possible to re-install XP"

    Glad to hear you like the "knoppix boot" approach also. That even seems like I can avoid all the work of discovering the exact files names as I will see my desktop again, can run HP's Image Zone and at least send the newer photos somewhere out of the machine (even to HP´s free "share of photos" system, if need be). It avoids removal of HD, which I could mess up. (I have put more memory chips and a x4 speed CD r/w drive into an old (4MB only originally - that is OLD) desktop computer, but do not look forward to opening a modern portable, which I bet even ants have problems moving around in.

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    )

    Thus lets concentrate on the "knoppix boot" approach. (Possible more in another post later, as I have only slight understanding of this now, but assume cite from which I down load "knoppix boot" will tell how to use, etc. - Think this "knoppix boot" approach may be just the same basic idea as an O.S. on a CD, but it solves the problem I cited in my reply to leppold99 as the O.S. is in the USB connected menory and I can write to the computer's CD drive files I want to belatedly back up.)

    I already own a small (256MB) SanDisk pen drive. (a RadioShack $12 present to wife who still works as professor and needed to move files from home to office)I bet it will hold the "knoppix boot" and quite a few files, but if machine is working again, I will just put the files out on a CD rather than going (via the pen drive) to some other computer to burn CDs.

    No, I had no switches set (no /f etc.) when I ran CHKDSK. Is it completely save to have it try to fix things? If it is, and may fix computer, that is simple and even I already know how to do that. Perhaps the first thing to try?

    I have full set (6) of DOS 6.3 manuals - stack about 3 inches high. I was using DOS3.1 when son-in-law stopped using 6.3 and gave disks etc. to me. They are in "mint condition" as he knew that stuff and I have only used the cmd ref / error msg manual a few times.

    As far as "fixing thing" it is good few are like me. We would still be in the stone age, if all were, instead of the mass production age. Parts of my 16 year car are litterally held together by steel wire, half of the windows work by direct hand contact with glass, not cranks, it has "poco-dot" paint job as I periodically dab any enamal paint I have on the scratch initiated rust spots, etc. (I do not care about looks and this makes it very "thief proof," which is a big problem in Brazil.* Mechanically, it is in great shape, except the already recapped tires are almost without tread again now.) I think I can keep it going at least 10 years more. (Bust my old record of 24 years on a VW bettle.) It is a "tank like" 4 wheel drive / Russian-made LADA/ niva, but wife's is only 4 year old. - A "baby" still. It is an economical "flex-fuel" VW gol model that in practice only uses alcohol.
    ----------------------
    *wife has had two stolen. They are ususally reduced to parts in less than 5 hours. Almost 100% of the cars in use in Paragua were stollen in Brazil. Some people make their living by driving stolen cars into Paragua. High quality false papers can be made in less than an hour - that too is a way to make your living. Brazil is really interesting palce to live.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 15, 2007
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