HELP!!!! "ERROR LOADING OS"

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

Hey guys,

So I bought a 200 gig drive installed w2k on it and formatted 3 partitions. 1 for the OS, 1 for mp3s, and the last for movies. I believe that I have SP4 on it. I was installing divx on it and all of these windows warnings came up that they couldn't find xxxxx files (sorry didn't even pay attention just cancelled out) and then restarted on it's own. Now when it restarts is just says "error loading OS"

Anyone have a clue what happenned. Oh ya, now when I plug in the drive to another computer I can see the mp3 and movie drives but the OS partition comes up as blank and it needs reformatting....

KILLorBE · Dec 27, 2004

Check BIOS settings for 1st, 2nd... boot device.
Run a HDD utility (Like DFT for IBM/Hitachi drives, Maxblast/PowerMAX for Maxtor drives....).
Check your memory with Memtest86 orso.

Are you able to boot in safe mode?
What file system did you use?
You could do a repair install, keep in mind that all updates are lost and some settings/drivers changed back to normal.

Cuper said:
Oh ya, now when I plug in the drive to another computer I can see the mp3 and movie drives but the OS partition comes up as blank and it needs reformatting....

What OS is on the other PC, If it uses FAT and your W2K partition is NTFS the other PC won't be able to access the W2K patition.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

KILLorBE said:
Check BIOS settings for 1st, 2nd... boot device.
Run a HDD utility (Like DFT for IBM/Hitachi drives, Maxblast/PowerMAX for Maxtor drives....).
Check your memory with Memtest86 orso.

Are you able to boot in safe mode?
What file system did you use?
You could do a repair install, keep in mind that all updates are lost and some settings/drivers changed back to normal.

What OS is on the other PC, If it uses FAT and your W2K partition is NTFS the other PC won't be able to access the W2K patition.

Thanks for the quick reply.

1) Boot order - not an issue as when I plug the drive into another computer and just try to "look" at the drive the partition with the OS on it is now seen as unformatted and I can't view it.

2) I will try to find my maxblast disk and try that.

3) Memory - not an issue as it has been in 2 computers

4) Safe Mode - won't even let me get that far. It stops after is says "boot from cd" then it says "error loading OS" and stops there.

5) I formatted the HD with NTFS from the begin. and this is the only OS that has been on the drive.

6) I inserted the 2K disk and tried to do a repair from the disk but it says it can't find an OS????

I will try to get a picture up so everyone can see what the heck is going on.

Thanks

Brad

Feydd · Dec 27, 2004

Is their already data on the other partitions you want to keep? If there isn't you could reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. After that just keep the drive as one partition. There is no reason you need to partition the drives just to store different types of data on different partitions. Just use seperate folders.

Ebola · Dec 27, 2004

If the HD utility says the drive is good then you could just format the os partition and reinstall windows on it.

Was this an official divx release or some type of unsupported release? It may have corrupted your system when you installed it. I've had stranger things happen.

KILLorBE · Dec 27, 2004

Cuper said:
6) I inserted the 2K disk and tried to do a repair from the disk but it says it can't find an OS????

Maybe your MBR got screwed up, goto the recovery console and type FIXMBR and hit enter, keep in mind that it may screw up other partitions and make things worse if a virus is causing problems.

If that didn't help you may have to type FIXBOOT X: (Where X stands for the drive letter on which your OS is) in the recovery console.

Personally I would try FIXBOOT first.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

Feydd said:
Is their already data on the other partitions you want to keep? If there isn't you could reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. After that just keep the drive as one partition. There is no reason you need to partition the drives just to store different types of data on different partitions. Just use seperate folders.

The problem is that I really need the data on the OS partition. I did the partitions cause I was thinking of sharing some partitions and not the others on a network.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

Ebola said:
If the HD utility says the drive is good then you could just format the os partition and reinstall windows on it.

Was this an official divx release or some type of unsupported release? It may have corrupted your system when you installed it. I've had stranger things happen.

I really would like to get the data off the OS partition.

It was an official divx release.

Feydd · Dec 27, 2004

Hmm, in that case do you have a working computer you could put that drive in to. Unless you think it's a virus causeing this.

Ebola · Dec 27, 2004

KILLorBE said:
Maybe your MBR got screwed up, goto the recovery console and type FIXMBR and hit enter, keep in mind that it may screw up other partitions and make things worse if a virus is causing problems.

I dont think thats the problem because if the MBR was erased then you should still be able to see the data on the partition when you put the drive in the other system.

I'd say the nt file system for the partition is corrupt. You might want to look into disk recovery tools if the data is important.

Mr.Guvernment · Dec 27, 2004

Feydd said:
Is their already data on the other partitions you want to keep? If there isn't you could reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. After that just keep the drive as one partition. There is no reason you need to partition the drives just to store different types of data on different partitions. Just use seperate folders.

there is a very good reason to parition and for this particular reason - this way he can format JUST C drive and leave the other paritions alone.- seperate folders does not do this.

Partitioning is a VERY good thing to do, because is your O/S get's corrupted you DONT have to format the entire drive, just the C partition.,

now if you have 1 hug drive and windows fubar's there goes your ENTIRE drive - since you have to format the whole thing - you may want to consider paritioning. in future.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

Ebola said:
I dont think thats the problem because if the MBR was erased then you should still be able to see the data on the partition when you put the drive in the other system.

I'd say the nt file system for the partition is corrupt. You might want to look into disk recovery tools if the data is important.

Do you / anyone have any recommendations for data recovery software?

Thanks!

KILLorBE · Dec 27, 2004

Ebola said:
I dont think thats the problem because if the MBR was erased then you should still be able to see the data on the partition when you put the drive in the other system.

I'd say the nt file system for the partition is corrupt. You might want to look into disk recovery tools if the data is important.

It wasn't erased as he's still able to see other partitions, I think it was damaged as the MBR contains the partition table.

I've been able to access HDD's using the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands before (On a laptop that had a bad HDD).

Cuper said:
Do you / anyone have any recommendations for data recovery software?

Did you try FIXBOOT?

PCInspector is free and works pretty good, PM me if you need other recommendations.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

KILLorBE said:
It wasn't erased as he's still able to see other partitions, I think it was damaged as the MBR contains the partition table.

I've been able to access HDD's using the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands before (On a laptop that had a bad HDD).

Did you try FIXBOOT?

PCInspector is free and works pretty good, PM me if you need other recommendations.

Hey, I tried the fixboot and I got another message. I will try to get some pics up in a bit. I was afraid to do the fixmbr as I would like to save the other files first. seems like this method can cause more issues.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

Ok here are 3 pics that I took

1) Here is a pic of the first error that I got

2) Here is a pic after I ran fixboot

3) Here is a pic after I restarted the computer

KILLorBE · Dec 27, 2004

Cuper said:
Hey, I tried the fixboot and I got another message. I will try to get some pics up in a bit. I was afraid to do the fixmbr as I would like to save the other files first. seems like this method can cause more issues.

You did the right thing, you should only use FIXMBR if data doesn't really matter, or only matters to a certain extent.

BTW: While I may seem to be online, I might be gone for a while.

Cuper · Dec 27, 2004

KILLorBE said:
You did the right thing, you should only use FIXMBR if data doesn't really matter, or only matters to a certain extent.

BTW: While I may seem to be online, I might be gone for a while.

Hey, thanks, the thing is that the data really does matter. I loaded up getdataback for ntfs and I can see the drive but don't think that I can see all of it. There are some photos that I really need to save if possible. Since I have a TON of drives what I am planning on doing is to onsolidate the stuff tonight and see what I have exactly. I am planning on saving the corrupt drive for last. I will report back later.

Anymore help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

Thanks

Brad

Mr.Guvernment · Dec 27, 2004

try to get a hold of R-tools data recovery - i used them and recoverd about 40g that windows server 2003 messed up.

KILLorBE · Dec 29, 2004

Any luck with data recovery software?

Here's an article that may help you to recover the boot sector...Click.

If that also didn't work, backup all data you can recover, and try FIXMBR.

Good luck.

Cuper · Dec 29, 2004

KILLorBE said:
Any luck with data recovery software?

Here's an article that may help you to recover the boot sector...Click.

If that also didn't work, backup all data you can recover, and try FIXMBR.

Good luck.

Not yet. I spent a TON of time getting ALL of my files organized and found the files that were really important to me in a backup on another drive. I used one of the old drives to get windows up and running on that computer again and I was just about to install getbackdata on. I did install it on the other computer and was able to see stuff on the other drive but it was a little confusing for me. I am hoping to try to understand more today and will report back. THANKS!

HELP!!!! "ERROR LOADING OS"

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