A power outage has slain my XP. I need help, have an english paper due tomorrow and its on my XP machine.

[SithSolo1]

Ok here's the deal.

Power went out. Power comes back on and turn on my computer. Instead of my desktop I get a nice little message stating: Windows cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.

You can fix it blah bla blah by using your WinXP cd. here in lies my problem, I can't find it and I don't have a backup(yea yea, stupid me). My friend has a copy of XP but he's appearently not home. Is there a way to fix it without the CD?

I need to know fast. If I'm gonna have to go buy another copy so be it, but I really don't wanna spend my college money on it.

 

[dahunan]

If that drive is FAT32 then set it as a slave and hook it to another machine and get your paper off of there and finish your paper and fix the problem later.

 

[SithSolo1]

Ok I got the paper off it.


I've alos got my friends copy(he finally got home), but i don't know how to use the recoery console. What do i do?

 

[Blurry]

Place the WinXP CD in your cd drive(or DVD vice versa). It should be booted into the Windows XP installation screen. Select the Windows Repair System. It will use your CD and repair/replace all the broken files or corrupted ones with new ones that should work on your computer. Something like a transplant.

NOTE: The NTFS file system is extremely sensitive to reboots or crashes. About 64% of the time when its a sudden reboot, it may damage your System32 folder which is crucial to your OS. Just be careful next time.

 

[bozo1]

<< The NTFS file system is extremely sensitive to reboots or crashes >>


Actually, just the opposite is true.

 

[kovert]

I can honestly say that WinXP seems very sensitive to power outages. It might be my imagination but I have had two power outages that required a COMPLETE reinstall of XP. The repair worked enough to get the files I needed, but the system was still pretty squirrly.

Needless to say, because of that and the Printer/Scanner problem I was having, I am back to using Win2K. And I know, I know, I should go out and buy a UPS. I'm just waiting for a sale

-kovert

 

[c0rv1d43]

Windows XP writes settings back to the registry hives at shutdown. If you have a power failure, then chances are that a hive (particularly the SYSTEM hive) may be borked, or considered borked by the OS. That's not due, however, to any shortcoming of NTFS, or of Windows XP for that matter. NTFS is far less likely to lose data, like the paper that was due, because of a power outage than a FAT32 partition. The point is that the DATA is likely to be safe on an NTFS partition, and even if something happens to make the OS unbootable, you can still recover the data. And at least Windows XP also gives you the chance to restore the OS to operating condition -- and much more easily than previous versions of NT. The System Restore feature, a Repair installation, or use of the Recovery Console will be almost certain to help you get a WinXP partition working again unless the drive has been physically borked.

Anyone, like me, who has tried to help clients recover data following power failures on machines running operating systems like AIX can attest to the fact that Windows XP is a dreamboat by comparison in these sorts of situations.

- Collin