Major XP Problems

[Livingston Dell]

Well, here i am again with yet more unusual XP Problems! It wasn't that long ago i have to format and reinstall XP

Here's the deal: I fitted a second HD a little while back and am finally getting round to making proper use of it I created a partition on it and installed XP on it so i could have a sort of 'testing grounds' without mucking up my main installation.

Now, i thought all of this was going to be a good idea but in typical windows style magic my main installation somehow got mucked up anyway

When i boot into my main installation, it all seems fine until i get to the welcome screen. The welcome screen has the Windows XP Logo and looks like it always does... except all the user accounts are missing and so is the "turn off my computer" button in the corner. Basically, there is nothing on screen and i can't get logged in.

the problem is exactly the same when i try to boot into safemode, it goes through all the usual, gets to the welcome screen and... nothing, no user accounts, no ctrl+alt+del to bring up the classic login interface.

I'm guessing i'll either have to format + re-install or have to at least repair the installation but for the 2nd i've read you usually have to re-install programs again anyway so there isn't much benifit in my opinion.

Before i go ahead with this, has anyone heard of this problem and know of any cure?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[AlwaysUp]

Personally haven't ever heard of anyone doing what you are doing exactly. That said, I could imagine a few reasons for the problems you are experiencing. IMHO, it is less of an XP problem and more of an installation problem. Why don't you set up your system with removable HDD's with your main installation and your "proving" volume independant of one another and just pop the desired OS volume in at bootup time?

[Livingston Dell]

My wording was probably a little bad but it's all stress related

I'm basically just dual booting my system which i've done for years with no hassle. i got the 2nd HD recently as i needed the space for more files and OSes. I do quite a bit of software testing for various companies out there and you know how that can damage your system I've had it fitted for over a month now and it hasn't caused any problems.

Currently i have Win98, and WinXP installed and to make my life easier i thought i'd setup another installation of XP on a seperate partition (which belongs to my 2nd HD). The new installation works no problem and as per usual i get to the boot screen and select where i want to go. But it seems somewhere along the line, my main installation (c: partition) has gotten damaged.

Anyway, i did find one person with the same problem as me but no solution: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Oper..._20724312.html

[Confused]

Originally posted by Livingston Dell I'm guessing i'll either have to format + re-install or have to at least repair the installation but for the 2nd i've read you usually have to re-install programs again anyway so there isn't much benifit in my opinion. .

Application programs will be OK. You will however have to reinstall SP1 and all the updates.
Chas

[andyms18a]

when you get to the log on screan press ctrl alt delete if task manager comes up hit new task and browse to C:\WINDOWS\system32\Restore\rstrui.exe and see if system restor can fix it for you

[Livingston Dell]

Sadly i can't access the task manager. Ctrl+Alt+Del didn't do anything

I repaired the XP installation but my system is a total mess. For reasons only know to microsoft ( ) repairing the installation also change all my partition letters creating a mess right accross the system. Maybe it's about time i move to Linux

[Confused]

Originally posted by Livingston Dell Maybe it's about time i move to Linux

I played around with in some but in my opinion it's not quite ready for prime time yet. Had a lot of trouble with drivers and my favorite application (Quicken) isn't supported.

XP is best MS OS I've used but it can get hosed in spite of what MS says. I had problems and repair fixed it first time. Didn't help second time and eventually my PC would not even boot into safe mode. I wound up formatting and reinstalling also.
Chas

[GreyFalcon]

What you need to do is give up on '98, and just commit to XP. In a dual boot, your boot.ini is on the C: partition with your 9X Operating system. If it gets hosed, so does XP. I imagine that is what happened when you introduced the new drive and new copy of XP. If you remove the second drive so there is no drive letter shift, and SYS C: you will most likely get your '98 back. I couldn't tell you how many times I had to reinstall '98, and I screwed up XP quite a few times along the way trying to treat it like '98. With XP, you don't have to screw around with it because it works as designed (as long as you apply all the updates). XP works best with at least 512MB of memory and the faster the system the better, but anything over 700MHz is just fine. Set it up on NTFS, get a good firewall such as ZA Pro and a good Antivirus. I use AVG, but Norton is just fine. Don't worry about the system bloat, because it handles it just fine. I am running a PIII Tualatin 1.26 with a GeForce3, everything turned on in XP, networked, and sharing a satellite connection with ICS and a switch, and it still plays the new Halo demo just fine (offline of course). If someone with a dual boot can post their boot.ini, you can most likely edit yours, and get your original XP back also.

[Confused]

Originally posted by GreyFalcon What you need to do is give up on '98, and just commit to XP. In a dual boot, your boot.ini is on the C: partition with your 9X Operating system. If it gets hosed, so does XP.

I was running a dual boot with WIN98 FE. I had set it up that way just in case I had problems with applications or games on XP. Since I didn't have any problems with XP I dropped the dual boot and went with just XP when I reformatted and reloaded.
Chas

[Livingston Dell]

Did i mention i cheat with the whole dual booting thing? PQ Boot magic so i change the active partition and hide the other one. it got round the fact i had to add Win98 later on to use old software and i only had 1 HD at the time; as adding the FAT partition before my current NTFS partition would have screwed drive letters it seemed better to do it that way.

Well, all efforts wasted anyway I just got rid of all my dual boot setup and most of my partitions. Seems no matter what i did i couldn't save my installation but at least i grabbed the files from it before hand.

XP is best MS OS I've used but it can get hosed in spite of what MS says.

Don't i know it .. third time

[GreyFalcon]

XP gives me no trouble, but if it ever does, the OS is the only thing lost.

[doubledragon5]

My suggestion would be to have both your XP installations on one HD partitioned into two. Then I would have 98 all on it's own HD. I ran ito a problem with XP and Win 2000 pro where I had XP loaded first than I loaded 2000. I was not able to enter XP period and 2000 showed up as my first boot option.Every time I tried to enter XP it told me there was a corrupt or missing file so 2000 could not load, when in fact XP was the one that would not load. When I reinstalled the two OS I installed 2000 first than XP where XP was now the first boot option and bingo no problems.

[AlwaysUp]

Dual Boot rule of thumb, mentioned over and over in the forums....OLDEST OS first!

[AlwaysUp]

I evidently don't get it. I don't see any advantage to putting more than one copy of any OS on any given PC. I would think that in NTFS volumes that NTLDR could get kinda confused.

[doubledragon5]

Originally posted by AlwaysUp Dual Boot rule of thumb, mentioned over and over in the forums....OLDEST OS first!

Well it may be the oldest rule on the forums, but in my case it caused nothing put problems. I still stand by my recommendations. Just because it is a rule of thumb here doesn't mean it always works.

[AlwaysUp]

2K IS the older of the two OS's, thus when you installed it first, then XP all was well. I am not saying that others have not overcome the issue of first installing a more recent OS then an older one, it's is just that it is the least problematic to follow this rule. You make my point for me more elaborately than I.

[bailey]

it is also the recommended method

for the life of me, I can't see any reason thay anyone would want two installs of the same system.its just a total waste of disk space

[Livingston Dell]

To test software, if you're into that. Try testing it on your main setup and one day you'll say "oh s***. It just corrupt half of my windows installation". Really i should also get a second computer but that'll have to wait for another time.

[AlwaysUp]

You can install and test software and if system critical problems arize, recovery tools are there to return to a point in time whereby the software will be but a recent memory. Two identical OS's on a machine.....no recovery tool available that can handle all the potential problems. I wish you all the luck and a speedy appearance of a test machine

[GreyFalcon]

Actually it's simple enough. With two hard drives, you can always go into the BIOS, and pick which drive to boot from. Set each OS up independently with the other drive disconnected. Then when you pick a boot drive, there is no commonality, so one can completely crash, and the other is totally unaffected. The up side is that you will be able to access files on both drives without a conflict. I would be sure to set XP, so it doesn't set restore options on the second drive. I always partition so my OS has it's own drive so everything else is unaffected if there is a problem. Remember that with two bootable drives, the second drive will always be D:, so partition accordingly so your programs don't get disconnected with a drive letter change.

[doubledragon5]

I have to OS running one is to play games (XP) the other (2000) to surf and hopefully run a small server. It is also good so if like already stated if one crashes the other will not be affected.