Sorry for bringing WinXP into this but my roomate has it on his laptop. Apparently something happened to it, preventing Windows from even starting up to the Win Logo...it just goes straight to a black screen (or in safe mode it gets about half a page of writing done, listing files it is opening)

So I was able to use DSL (Damn Small Linux) to access his partition and save the files he needed to my USB flash drive, but now I was hoping to be able to go beyond and figure out what is wrong with his Win system. He doesn't have the WinXP cd with him here at school, so it'll be a few days before he can get it fixed.



By the way, DSL is a great little linux distro for this type of recovery. I has a nice little desktop, has mount points for the hard drive and USB already created, ready for mounting. It will soon have NTFS write capabilities from what I've heard. And it is only 50Mb so you can download it quickly, and keep in a small ready to use CD. I like it up to now, but I'm sure I could have found something better and smaller. But worked perfect for what I needed. I'll need to find a bootable Linux CD with NTFS support to fix the Windows distro (I think it was NTFS) but I still recommend DSL for data recovery when you are in a jam...until I find something better.

In DSL (I agree, DSL is very good for me, and it's only like 23MB! My pocket weapon), try mounting the hard disk up and looking at everything to see what has happened. It sounds like he may just need to Fdisk the master boot record since everything seems intact (for you to recover his data). I personally don't peticularly like the NTFS for that very reason--you can't write to it from Linux, meaning that XP, in this case, is probably gone without the installation CD. Had it been FAT32, you may could help it, or resize the partition to fit a Linux in (maybe recovering XP in the process?). ...but if Linux dies after you do this, the disk needs low-level formatting to recover functionality (had this crash).

Would it be the MBR? It does get to the part where it asks if you want to start in safe mode since it wasn't shut down properly...and safe mode does start loading. Its lists a bunch of files that are loaded.

I was thinking one of the system files got corrupted. Is there a way to scan the partition for errors?
I'm starting to doubt it is NTFS, but it still could be.

Sorry for all the Windows talk, but the way I look at it, if Linux can be used to fix Windows, and not vice versa, then Linux is obviously kicks -ss.

Thanks for the help.
My roomate is bringing his computer home this weekend, and I think he has the Windows CD there, so it should be alright. I'm still impressed with how easy it was to use DSL to mount the hard drive and copy files to a USB flash drive. Not even close to as much work with my normal linux distro (Slack right now).

Checking the M$ knowledge base can sometimes be useful to get a handle on what is going on.
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

what file does xp stop at in safe mode thats usually the culprit...

If it prompts you for Safe Mode, then you're probably in decent shape. A quick overinstall should clear things up quickly without having to reformat. Since it is Windows XP, I may bet the ranch that it is NTFS, unless you have installed it yourself and formatted it as FAT32 (XP is sorta a NT). My suggestion: use ME if you do use Windows, otherwise SuSE Linux.

I read somewhere when researching ext3 that NTFS tends to go spastic once every now and then and destroy it's boot record. Once you get hold of the WinXP disc, boot the recovery console and type fixmbr. That should solve it if it's not anything major. If you've got any Windows CD lying around, just use that to boot into command prompt and type 'fdisk /mbr' and that'll do the same thing
[edit]
And don't use WinMe.. jeez Win98 second edition is muuuuch better than WinMe.
[/edit]

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS WONDERFUL DON"T USE ME!!! I've used it and had nothing but trouble. I would recommend just formatting the drive to FAT32 when you get the install disk so that future problems can be resolved through Linux.

Strange, ME seems to be doing much better than XP did for me. I know ME's legendary as being garbage, but XP has proved itself as manure on my hardware. I guess you use what works for you. Maybe, because of this experience, I'm about the only ME supporter in existance.

As far as NTFS, I know it's designed so that if you try to write to it outside of Windows NT (or XP in your rent-a-john ), it will self-destruct, taking your data with it. That's why I use FAT32, even with NT of XP. My most disasterous crash, however, occurred with NTFS in place.

As far as reformatting the drive, I suggest you get the low-level formatter of your hard disk. That will wipe it completely clean, but is a little more work and a little more wait. Using any Windows tool just lets too many problems through.

I think there's a market for a set of Linux-based tools that can be used to easily repair Windows installations. It's so much easier to boot into Linux when things aren't going right, and everything on Linux is so much more transparent than on Windows. Sometimes I think Windows is designed to protect the user from the operating system.

Of course, some of the low-level tools are already there: parted, test disk, fdisk (Linux variety), etc., but a whole suite of these utilities plus some tools that are specifically designed to handle the NT repair console functions would be nice.

Originally, Windows was made to protect the user from DOS, which was to protect the user from having to manually work each component. That heritage still shows to this day, and it's painfully obvious.

Two challenge questions I use when told that Windows can do anything Linux can, I ask "Can Windows be booted off a CD to a productive desktop? (Knoppix)" and "Can Windows keep crackers at bay as well as Linux?" The only reason, in my opinion, that Linux isn't as big as Windows, is that people are unwilling to learn or change, so they stick with the same old unoroductive Windows, whereas they can grab up several virtual desktops and get twice the work done, for less cost.

that and to the person saying to use ME... god no. go back to win98SE or stay with 2k/XP ME was the absolute worst OS microsoft has ever produced.

anyways, back to the questions at hand... this book might be of interest to many of you here. someone from my LUG posted it and i am thinking about getting it for just reasons like the OP and several others of you have posted:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

supposed to have a load of the tools that several have asked for to repair and help recover not only linux, but windows too.

as for why linux is not as big as M$? that is simple. pure marketing genious of Bill Gates. you have to give credit were credit is due. what he did in the 80s and 90s with his company was nothing short of amazing. his marketing empire is the largest and best in the world, and for good reason.

that is not saying the same for their product, but that is for an other debate. *nix is catching on more and more every year. more and more small businesses and local governemnts, not to mention entire country governments, are moving to open source software/OSs for all the right reasons, and a few of the wrong ones.

Windows is very good at what it does, when it works. XP is by far the most stable OS M$ has released, and i hear that 2k3 is even better as a server then 2k. 2k is bloated, but as far as M$ servers go a HUGE jump over NT4. neither compair to the stability or power of *nix and again that is for an other debate.

currently i have been converting a few EUs and small companies to *nix as i learn more and become more and more comfortable with managing a *nix network, etc. the #1 hurdel i am running into is 3rd party apps that companies rely on.

a prefect example is title companies. they do business with lenders, banks, ressearch companies, etc.. and every single one of them has some kind of 'packet' they put together for the title company. often times they are compressed (companies still thinking 56k days here) in some propriatory way that is available for download at their site made in Frontpage, thus only working with IE.

it is the 3rd party companies that are to blame for the most part of the hold over from the large scale conversion into *nix as i see it. if you remove the 3rd party prapriotory(boy i really can not spell that word) software that only runs in windows you could move more and more EUs and small companies, and even some large companies over to *nix as the conversion is extreemly easy on the average worker.

the only real differance between a windows desktop and KDE/Gnome is the look. so it is like having a windows machine with a new theme. all of the double click, right click, single click, click and drag opptions for windows are now fully in KDE or Gnome, and i am sure they are in even lighter xwindow options as well.

the reason i say that is simple. my POS (point of sale) computer was running win2k pro and uses terminal service(TS) to connect to my win2k server so i can access QuickBooks (QB) like a thin client. i have a few ladies that help out here at the school that can double click icons and can answere user/pw when prompted. end of skill. very simular to 90% of the Eus out there. well several months back i swaped over to RH9 on that system for stablilty and security. (yes i am using AD and security settings via the DC, but that was to clunky to get exactly what i wanted) and all i had to do was show them what the new ICON looked like and away they went.

total training time = less then 5sec.

same thing at the house. i have a laptop running RH9 that was running XP. my wife uses this for checking her e-mail, browsing the web, and a small handful of word documents for school. total training time was less then 2min to get her used to RH vs XP.

as long as 3rd party software is not able to be replaced by something in the *nix world, M$ will maintain their grip, but once more and more of the 3rd party stuff gets coutnerparts in *nix that grip will losen and fast.

Thanks for the link, Lleb_KCir. That looks like a great book. Just in time for Christmas, too.

I've been using the System Rescue CD, which has a pretty good collection of utilities, but it looks like you can do even more with Knoppix + the hack book you suggested.

Christmas is what im looking at too. i want that one and the networking one you can get bundled for a fair price.

I seem to have inverse luck from what most people have. '98 SE was unstable for me, and XP was outright destrctive to my computer, plus drivers for it were impossible for me to get. I will admit that I was the first to bash ME because it is legendary fur sucking, more than any other Windows out there. ...but I will also, now, be the first to defend ME, as it seems to be holding strong for me (at least as strong as a Windows can be. ). ...but as always, there's a better sherriff in town. Even Mandrake is better, and I have had very bad luck out of its components. This means that even ME has to watch its step, as Mandrake and SuSE are both after it. The only thing keeping ME in place is the fact that WINe won't push my ISP's software, and contained within it is a logon script that has to be executed for me to log on.