I need a little repair assistance please * Fixed*

Megadeth4168

Ok, I got myself a nice little problem that I thought was going to be easy (silly me).
Anyway, my brother brings me his computer, he said he installed some webcam drivers and they did not appear to work... So he unintalled them and in the process decided to uninstall his ethernet drivers as well....

I thought, OK, no big deal. Except he said his computer boots to a black screen now and thats it.

So I'm thinking... Hmmm, safe mode then System restore.... Nope! No matter which mode of windows I get into the keyboard and mouse do not work!

To make matters worse, he has a compaq that has an OEM install of windows... So fixing the registry though Recovery console seems to be out of the question....

So I'm thinking, F10 at boot up to use Compaqs recovery.... Except it won't come up at all!!! F10 does nothing! I can get into the BIOS and the boot menu but not System Recovery! I checked the F10 key(s) on both keyboards I have with a working computer and they work fine.

So, short of ordering a restore CD from Compaq what options do I have?

I was able to take the drive out and place it in another computer and back up all my brothers pictures and music (the only things that he cared about).

Oh yeah, one other thing I tried that failed... I tried booting Knoppix from the CD but I don't think it could mount the SATA drive.

I would appreciate any help anyone can provide. Thank you all!

stup4

usb keyboard and mouse ?

boyles23

You may have to order the restore cd's but I would consider that the hd might have went bad. Do you have any hd tests that you can run to check it? Such as dft ( might not work with sata) or seatools test! I would check your hardware first but even if that is the case you will have to get the restore cds anyways.

Good Luck and sorry not much help without looking at exactly what it is doing.

RussS

Does it get to Safe Mode at all?
If so ...

First up - Plug in a PS2 mouse and keyboard if it is using USB. That should allow you to uninstall anything USB from the Hardware Manager - then plug them in and let the system find them again.

Next, sort out the network connection.


If it doesn't come up you can always use any XP CD to use the Recovery Console.

brickstol

Hi there?

Just been through a similar situation myself this week. Have tried a couple of things out including what you have mentioned but no luck. The only thing that worked was to boot using XP CD and then launch the recovery console From there I could performed a repair (by pressing R on the keyboard). It is now back to normal and the files intact.

The likely possibility why you could not find the Recovery console option is becuase it is not install on your hard drive. You might consider doing that next time your system is up.

Hope that help.

Megadeth4168

I appreciate all the input so far.
I suppose I should give some more details.

I have used a Set of USB Mouse and Keyboard and a set of PS/2.

I have used recovery console but from everything I've read I cannot fix the registry on an OEM install.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Both keyboards work fine.... I tried them on another PC... Both can type in Recovery Console ect....

I can boot into Windows VGA Mode, I can boot into Safe Mode ect.... But once Windows is up the keyboard and Mouse are frozen.

brickstol:
What did you do to resolve the issue once in Recovery Console?

Today I'm going to call Compaq to get the Recovery CD... I hate how they don't ship with the software and everything anymore!

Anyway, Thank you all for responding, I will run some diagnostics on the Hard Drive like suggested and see what else comes up. thank you all.

seuss_ssues

When a machine has problems booting or is boot looping there are a few common things i always do first. I definately like to check out the HW. I'll open a machine up and look for blown caps and then run a quick full HW diagnostic and probably a full hard drive diagnostic. Seagate's hd test isnt too bad, it will check physical structure and file structure.

Of course if it finds bad sectors then he needs a new hard drive.
If it finds file structure (NTFS) problems then try running a chkdsk /R to repair them.

KGhaleon

chkdsk /r generally fixes this problem for me 70% of the time, but if you can at least *access* a recovery console then you could always do a system restore from there.

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1167895,00.html

If the drive is bad, you should definately check that first and make sure the customer's data gets backed-up before doing any other diagnostics. Hopefully it's not the drive, since it doesn't sound like an issue that you would see with a drive that has gone bad.

KG

Megadeth4168

KGhaleon wrote:

chkdsk /r generally fixes this problem for me 70% of the time, but if you can at least *access* a recovery console then you could always do a system restore from there.

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1167895,00.html

If the drive is bad, you should definitely check that first and make sure the customer's data gets backed-up before doing any other diagnostics. Hopefully it's not the drive, since it doesn't sound like an issue that you would see with a drive that has gone bad.

KG

I actually ran chkdsk /r yesterday (I think I left that out of my above statements) That did not help just to clear that out of the way....

The article you linked to me is very interesting though... Will that work on OEM installs as well I wonder? I will try it on my lunch hour and see. If in fact it screws things up even more I do have a back up the system and software files from the system32/config directory already.

Thanks for the link, I'll let you know in a couple hours if that works.

KGhaleon

As long as you don't get any "Access denied" problems with the files on the drive, then you should be able to use that to restore the system back to the appropriate date. I have never had a problem with it, except when I can't access the files due to a permission problem.

Your just copying two files. It's relatively simple and worth a shot if you have little else to try. I don't know if it will work with OEM versions, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

KG

Megadeth4168

Bad News!

I tried to change directory to system~1 (system volume information) and got an Access Denied!

*sigh* After work I'm going to hook the Hard drive up as a slave on another machine (like I did yesterday to back up his files) and try copying the SYSTEM & SOFTWARE files over that way. I hope that works.

KGhaleon

Might work if you can do that. Denied access is a pain, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. If anyone knows a better way to get around it I'd like to know.

KG

Megadeth4168

KGhaleon wrote:

Might work if you can do that. Denied access is a pain, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. If anyone knows a better way to get around it I'd like to know.

KG

Good News!
Problem resolved! I hooked the drive up as a slave on my computer and gave myself permissions to the System Volume Information and copied the SYSTEM & SOFTWARE files over.

System is up and running!

I can't thank you enough for sending me that link! Thank you and thanks to everyone who supported also! We have a good group of people on this forum.

KGhaleon

Good to hear.
I'll have to try that slave tactic when I have that problem again.

KG

brickstol

Hi Megadeth4168!

Sorry I am rather late with the reply. I hope by now you have managed to solve the issue. However, when you do get recovery disk all ou have to do is boot the computer using the CD and some files will be loaded into your system. You will be asked at some stage to specify what do you intend to do. Options include Intsall OS on drive and repair OS and maybe 1 or 2 other options. To keep the files already saved on your system just press (R) and nothing else.
The files will be repaired and the XP will load. In case the system hang just reboot and follow the same step all over again!

All the best