Anyone Know Anything About Fixing Boot Sector Problems?

[W9GT]

Well...it had to happen sometime, I guess.  I had a major computer crap-out this past week.  I ended-up moving up my planned and previously talked-about purchase of a new lap-top to supplement the desk-top machine at 'GT studios.
My "main" computer was/is an HP Pavillian - Windows XP box.  It served me well for 4 + years, but suddenly crashed last week.  When turned on....it goes to a trouble screen that says that (MS) apologizes for the inconvenience and gives several choices including "SAFE" modes and starting Windows normally or in last known working configuration.  Of course...my luck...none of the choices work.  It seems to be stuck in a boot-up loop and regardless of what choice is made...goes back to the trouble screen.

The guy at the local computzer emporium says that it might be a "boot sector virus".  I find that kinda strange because I always used Norton virus protection software and never had any major problems before.  Anyway...if it is a virus...could be a new one that the protection didn't catch.  Anyone familiar with this problem?  Any suggestions for fixing it other than wiping everything off of the hard drive and starting over?  I don't want to lose all my stuff.

Thanks for any input.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Can you boot off of a CD or external drive? If so, do that and then run some repair routines on the HD.

[Bill, KD0HG]

As a last resort, boot your computer in safe mode, select the command prompt option. Or boot from the Windows install disc.
There's two DOS utilities built into Windows, one is FIXBOOT and the other is FIXMBR (Fix master boot record). Type either one in followed by /? to review your options for these utilities.

Most likely, your hard drive is on the way out, not a virus. Might be a good idea to run chkdsk /R in dos mode to find out.

If this fails, don't despair.

Install a new hard drive and install Windows on it. Then plug in your old drive, you should most likely be able to recover the files on it to your new drive, even if it won't boot.

[W9GT]

Can you boot off of a CD or external drive? If so, do that and then run some repair routines on the HD.

HP, in their infinite wisdom, put the back-up on a partition of the hard drive.  I was able to access it by hitting F10 on start-up, however, the only restore option available (other than a total wipe of the HD and reload of the operating system) is the "restore mode" which just takes me back to the same trouble screen and choices...which leads to the same stuck in the loop syndrome.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Sam KS2AM]

Well...it had to happen sometime, I guess.  I had a major computer crap-out this past week.  I ended-up moving up my planned and previously talked-about purchase of a new lap-top to supplement the desk-top machine at 'GT studios.
My "main" computer was/is an HP Pavillian - Windows XP box.  It served me well for 4 + years, but suddenly crashed last week.  When turned on....it goes to a trouble screen that says that (MS) apologizes for the inconvenience and gives several choices including "SAFE" modes and starting Windows normally or in last known working configuration.  Of course...my luck...none of the choices work.  It seems to be stuck in a boot-up loop and regardless of what choice is made...goes back to the trouble screen.

The guy at the local computzer emporium says that it might be a "boot sector virus".  I find that kinda strange because I always used Norton virus protection software and never had any major problems before.  Anyway...if it is a virus...could be a new one that the protection didn't catch.  Anyone familiar with this problem?  Any suggestions for fixing it other than wiping everything off of the hard drive and starting over?  I don't want to lose all my stuff.

Thanks for any input.

73,  Jack, W9GT

If you boot from your Windows XP CD there are a couple of options that may be helpful.   
One is the Repair option that will repair some essential system files and the other is the option to go into the command prompt where you can run "chkdsk /f" against the C: volume to detect and repair issues with that volume.

To boot from the Windows XP CD in most cases you will have to go into the HP BIOS at boot time and switch the boot order around.

You have all of your valuable data on your system volume backed up of course ... ?  ;-)


Sam  /  KS2AM

[W9GT]

If you boot from your Windows XP CD there are a couple of options that may be helpful.   
One is the Repair option that will repair some essential system files and the other is the option to go into the command prompt where you can run "chkdsk /f" against the C: volume to detect and repair issues with that volume.

To boot from the Windows XP CD in most cases you will have to go into the HP BIOS at boot time and switch the boot order around.

You have all of your valuable data on your system volume backed up of course ... ?  ;-)


Sam  /  KS2AM

[/quote]

The problem that I have is that they didn't give me a CD to back-up XP.  The back-up is only on the partition of the HD and I don't really know how to gain access to individual components....only to an overall restore procedure that leads either to wiping everything out and reloading the system or back to the Windows restore process that leads to the trouble screen and the endless loop in the boot process.
I'm sort'a stuck in the middle.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Sam KS2AM]

If you boot from your Windows XP CD there are a couple of options that may be helpful.   
One is the Repair option that will repair some essential system files and the other is the option to go into the command prompt where you can run "chkdsk /f" against the C: volume to detect and repair issues with that volume.

To boot from the Windows XP CD in most cases you will have to go into the HP BIOS at boot time and switch the boot order around.

You have all of your valuable data on your system volume backed up of course ... ?  ;-)


Sam  /  KS2AM



The problem that I have is that they didn't give me a CD to back-up XP.  The back-up is only on the partition of the HD and I don't really know how to gain access to individual components....only to an overall restore procedure that leads either to wiping everything out and reloading the system or back to the Windows restore process that leads to the trouble screen and the endless loop in the boot process.
I'm sort'a stuck in the middle.

73,  Jack, W9GT

In terms of repairing the issue, if you don't have a Windows XP CD to boot from you are kind of stuck ... I understand that none of the Safe Mode options helped (I assume you tried last "known good configuration") and you don't have the Windows XP CD which would offer you some more options.

Perhaps you can borrow someones Windows XP CD so that you can boot from it to try and repair your problem.


What I meant by having your "valuable data on your system volume backed up" is, do you have all of your documents, pictures, emails that you need backed up elsewhere - on another drive, on another system, on floppies, on a USB drive, etc ?   If worse comes to worse and your drive is failed or failing you're at risk of losing all of that stuff.

If you can't get ahold of a Windows XP installation CD, another option is to take your hard drive to another system .... yours or a friends, and connect it as a secondary drive and try and copy whatever data you can off of it before you take any further steps to try and repair your drive. 


Sam

[W4EWH]

When turned on....it goes to a trouble screen that says that (MS) apologizes for the inconvenience and gives several choices including "SAFE" modes and starting Windows normally or in last known working configuration.  Of course...my luck...none of the choices work.  It seems to be stuck in a boot-up loop and regardless of what choice is made...goes back to the trouble screen.

Jack,

You don't have a boot-sector virus. You might have a virus on the machine, but not a boot-sector type.

Here are your options, in order of increasing cost:

• Mount a new HD in the machine, and use Partition Magic or Linux DD to copy the HP restore partition and use that to re-install the OS on the new drive. Then, copy the important files from the old over to the new "system" disk.
• Start the machine with a "Run from CD" version of Linux, and use it to transfer the data from the HD over your LAN to another machine. You'll need to have a "writable" share on the target computer if it's running Windoze, or Samba if it's running Linux.
• Send the disk to a repair house. They are very expensive, but only you know what your time is worth, and how long it will take you to recontruct the drive's contents by hand if you're not comfortable with the previous choices.

HTH.

73,

Bill, W1AC

[Jim, W5JO]

If I recall correctly, there are two ways to repair the problem using the current system.  Boot in the safe mode and you should have a Recovery option which eliminates all data and install programs, esientally returning the hard drive to HP factory programs.  The other option is recovery.  This does not destroy the complete system but mearly re-installs the operating system.

If you can do a recovery from the safe mode, I would try that first.  I have the HP XP discs and it when it boots from them it offers both options.  There are 8-10 discs in the collection.  If you choose recovery then it asks if restore will do.  You should have that option if you go with recovery.

Restore is under "System Tools" but I forget where Recovery is.

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

I had a machine that suddenly just wouldn't boot.  I had to keep restarting and restarting, and then occasionally it would boot.  It turned out that the CD drive had failed, and it was fighting the hard drive somehow. I replaced the CD drive, and all was well.

I have had some boot sector problems over the years.  I use FAT32, and emergency repairs are done from DOS with a Win98 disk with a couple of other programs on it.  There is some undocumented command,    FDISK /MBR       that has saved the machine a couple of times by repairing the Master Boot Record.  I think this will work with NTFS as well.

[W9GT]

I had a machine that suddenly just wouldn't boot.  I had to keep restarting and restarting, and then occasionally it would boot.  It turned out that the CD drive had failed, and it was fighting the hard drive somehow. I replaced the CD drive, and all was well.

I have had some boot sector problems over the years.  I use FAT32, and emergency repairs are done from DOS with a Win98 disk with a couple of other programs on it.  There is some undocumented command,    FDISK /MBR       that has saved the machine a couple of times by repairing the Master Boot Record.  I think this will work with NTFS as well.

You know...before the crash, I noticed a problem with my little outboard zip drive.  It started making clicking sounds during the boot-up interval that I had never noticed before.  I did remove it (unplugged) but didn't seem to help my boot-up difficulties.  Anyway, it seems like general consensus points toward trying to get an XP back-up CD and see if I can get the computer to boot-up on that.  Thanks very much for all the input.  I have spent most of my life and career working with radio and electronics, but I'm definitely not a computer geek.  I enjoy using my computer toward the pursuit of my various other interests, but not as an end in itself.  I have great respect for those who can work with the stuff, but I'm sure no expert!

73,  Jack, W9GT