XP Repair/Reinstall

[Virginia]

Win XP Home. Full version cd.  256mb ram.  20g hdd.  Proc unknown.

Am unable to do a repair to XP.  At bootup I get a message like "We apologise for the inconvenience etc..." and the following options are available:

"Start Windows Normally" "Try Last Known Good Configuration" "Safe Mode" "Safe mode with Cdrom Support" etc...

No matter which option is selected the system locks up.

Amended Bios to boot from cdrom first and got this message:
19540mb disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (MBR)

C:     Partition unknown

Pushing Enter to install produces the following:
The partition is either too full, damaged, not formatted or formatted with an incompatible file system.  To continue installing Windows, Setup must format the partition.

C: Partition [unknown]    19540mb (19539mb free) on 19540mb disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (MBR)

Tried booting from a W98 bootdisk and running I386\Winnt.exe from the XP cdrom and got the following:

An internal Setup error has occurred.  Could not find a place for a swapfile.  Setup cannot continue.  Press Enter to exit.

Is there any remote chance that a recovery is possible from these problems without formatting.  The drive is not partitioned.  I have replugged cables on hdd and mobo.  Not yet slaved the hdd in another pc.   The problems appear to have come up after an aborted attempt to install AdAware.  Friend cannot come up with better info and does not remember any funnies occurring.

TIA

V...

[pcdoc4christ]

Virginia:

Some possibilities: You have too many files on the hard drive to reinstall Windows, or a boot sector virus has damaged the boot sector or MBR, or the hard drive itself has suffered a mechanical failure.

We need more info. to determine the cause before we may determine the cure: Has the hard drive been making any strange metallic pinging sounds or grinding noises?  Why did you try a repair installation (were you getting error messages or did the computer just fail to boot)?  Do you hear any beep tones when you first start the computer (if so, how many)?

Let us know,
Doc

[Virginia]

Thanks pcdoc.

No report of noise from the hdd - no evidence of head-crash.  No beep code.  The on-screen messages listed in my first post were the only indication that something had gone wrong.

Vague possibility that the MBR may have been corrupted but AVG (free version), Zone Alarm (free version) were running and I'm assured they were up-to-date.  Also in use was SpyWareBlaster.  A UPS was used and a voltage/temperature monitoring prog was running (Intel Active Monitor).  The pc has had very little use, I doubt if the hdd is full to overflowing.

Today I will transfer the "bad" hdd to a known good system & try booting from it just to eliminate the possibility of a mobo error.  Will also swap a known good hdd to the "bad" system to confirm that it is the hdd giving the problems.

Appreciate your comments and look forward to any other suggestions you come up with

Thanks

V...

[GX1_Man]

Today I will transfer the "bad" hdd to a known good system & try booting from it just to eliminate the possibility of a mobo error.  

It may have difficulty booting just because it is hooked to componenets that were not there when installed on that hard drive. Results could be inconclusive.

[Mac]

Disconnect all peripherals and see if it will boot then. It might be stuck on a corrupt driver.

Burn a KNOPPIX CD on a friend's computer and boot directly to it to see if your volumes are mountable.

Use a floppy with just ntldr, ntdetect.com and your version of boot.ini to boot to the hardrive.

[Mac]

Hello Virginia, is this the friend's computer? Do you know if a lot of files may have been copied directly to the root directory C: ?

This can cause the ntldr, ntdetec.com files to be in the wrong place.

Also have you tried running the drive manufacturer's diagnostic diskette over the drive, or have you tried loading the Recovery Console?

[Virginia]

Thanks guys.

I tried the hdd swap around and couldn't boot from the suspect hdd in a known good system.  A known good hdd with XP pre-installed booted successfully in the suspect system after loading new drivers etc.  Slaved the hdd in a known good system and it was recognised in bios but I couldn't access any files.

Mac, yes the problem is in a friend's pc - further interrogation reveals she can only confirm the following: An attempt to install AdAware failed (I think she aborted it).  On next bootup she "seems to remember something about hal" but she's not sure what the message was, I presume hal.dll was missing.  Have tried disconnecting peripherals, no change.  Will d/l Knoppix and hdd diagnostic disk.  Recovery console here I come....  

Find it hard to believe that something as simple as a failed software install could cause so much angst.  I thought NTFS was a most stable file system until now....

Thanks again to all...

[Virginia]

Hello again guys.

I went into the Recovery Console witht the following results.

DIR C: returned "Error While Enumerating Files" (Don't yet know what that means)
DIR D: returned a list of the cd.
DIR A: returned different results every time it was run but did return the cd disk Serial Number.  (No explanation for that)
CD and CHDIR returned "Invalid Path C:\Windows" and any other path I tried.

Also found Master Boot Record and Master File Table corrupt.  Ran Fixmbr which seemed to work but still couldn't boot from the hdd.   Interesting that an attempt to boot into Safe Mode produced the usual list of files to be run but went no further.

Anyway, I thought you'd tried to help enough, and I'd had enough, so Formatted and re-installed XP, just got the problem of Desktop screen resolution being set at the minimum and can't get the slide to move (Integrated Graphics of course).

Still no idea of what could have caused this meltdown.  Partitioning would have helped if all data was on D: but at least determined it wasn't an expensive hardware problem....

Thanks again to all.

V...

[Virginia]

Life sure ain't simple.

Having done all the necessaries like format, re-install OS, install SP.2, firewall, anti-virus and update the lot on-line I switched off for a while.  On boot up got the missing hal.dll error message & when tried to correct that the lot turned to custard again.  All of the faults in my first post reappeared so I guess the hdd really is shot!!!

A trip to the hardware suppliers is indicated.  Just thought you'd like to know the final outcome, and hey, I'm not the blonde in the family.

Thanks one & all

V...