one of the best 'boot disks' i found can be download from this website: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
basically, it creates a cd image that starts a special version of windows xp (you need to have the xp pro cd handy or installed on the machine you create this cd from for this to work, i've found) and it also supports the most common network cards so anything you've got on an ntfs volume can be copied elsewhere.
as far as your pc problem goes, rename your windows, documents and settings, program files folders, backup your root directory and try a clean install.
this very same problem happend to my sisters pc and a clean install fixed it. i could find no fault with the hard drive or memory even after an extended soak test, so my theory is that this is the result of some virus.
if a clean install doesn't give you any joy (or the boot cd i suggested does not start) then it is likely you have a hardware fault somewhere.
PC looping
You're using a DOS/Windows 9x boot disk, which cannot read NTFS formatted partitions. You need a boot disk (running some form of NT, for example) that can read NTFS partitions. Either that, or your partition is corrupted (although this is less likely).rts wrote:Eeek!
Boot up disk works fine, but whatever I type it says:
Invalid media type reading drive C
Abort, Retry, Fail?
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
he doesn't mention what his file system is, but the last time i booted using a win98 disk on an xp system, the ntfs drivers were not mounted, so they weren't even given a drive letter.MarkN wrote:You're using a DOS/Windows 9x boot disk, which cannot read NTFS formatted partitions. You need a boot disk (running some form of NT, for example) that can read NTFS partitions. Either that, or your partition is corrupted (although this is less likely).rts wrote:Eeek!
Boot up disk works fine, but whatever I type it says:
Invalid media type reading drive C
Abort, Retry, Fail?
try running fdisk and (from memory) select option 4 to view the partition information to identify what file system is in use.
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
rts wrote:Where can I go to make a boot disk which will be able to read NTFS partitions?
read my post above. there is a freeware dos reader from http://www.sysinternals.com (you have to pay for the read write version), but the bartpe cd is much better as it has no such restriction and it lets you run chkdsk and other utilities on your drive.
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Neil Jones
- Posts: 661
- Joined: Thu 11 Sep, 2003 20.03
- Location: West Midlands
FDisk will wipe the data from the disk if you're not careful. I'm going to suggest something I should have said in the first place:rts wrote:How do I run fdisk sorry. I'm not amazingly knowledgable in this area!
I suggest at this point you remove the drive from the PC that is not working, put it in your currently working computer, connect it up and copy everything you need from it into a temp folder on the one you're on now, see my previous posts, or just copy everything if there's enough room.
Then you can use that copy of WinXP to wipe the disk you've copied from, put it back in the other machine and then boot from CD to get Windows installed onto the now blank disk.
When done, put it back in your current working machine again and copy your stuff back to it. Then put it back in the other one again and reinstall all your stuff.
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Dr Lobster*
- Posts: 2123
- Joined: Sat 30 Aug, 2003 20.14
if you type fdisk at the dos prompt it should appear. it might ask if you want to enable fat32 support, press y at this prompt.
if you get bad command or file name, it most likely means that fdisk isn't on the floppy and you'll need to obtain it by copying it from the windows\command folder from a windows 98 system.
i do recommend if you can creating the bartpe bootdisk, we use this at work and its an absolute god send when it comes to getting files of windows xp boxes what will not start. its much quicker than installing windows from scratch.
if you get bad command or file name, it most likely means that fdisk isn't on the floppy and you'll need to obtain it by copying it from the windows\command folder from a windows 98 system.
i do recommend if you can creating the bartpe bootdisk, we use this at work and its an absolute god send when it comes to getting files of windows xp boxes what will not start. its much quicker than installing windows from scratch.
Sorry everyone, only just had the chance to get back to this.
The bartpe thingy doesn't work cos I need to XP Service CD to make it and I have not got this. Is there any other way of having a boot disk which will allow me to read and write using the correct file system.
Cheers
The bartpe thingy doesn't work cos I need to XP Service CD to make it and I have not got this. Is there any other way of having a boot disk which will allow me to read and write using the correct file system.
Cheers
