[travis2k2rf]

Ok, here's the deal:

I have my one hd which is my boot drive (windows and all programs installed), one drive that is partitioned into two drives (one is empty, the other is a backup for my external), and an external. Yesterday I schedule all 4 drives, at the same time, for a disk check and restarted my computer. The disk check runs for one drive, completes without any problems, goes onto the next drive, runs without any problems, and just keep cycling through the drives. Even though it completes without error, it just runs in a continuous loop. The computer will run through the boot screen, then start the disk checking, it never boots all the way to the desktop. After it ran through all the drives and started again, I shut it down (just held the power button) and removed my external. So, now there are only three drives (the main drive and the partitioned drive) in the system.

I booted using a BartPE disk and went into the registry files: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager and found the BootExecute file. I set it to "autocheck autochk *" but that did not change anything. When I rebooted and reset the BIOS to boot from my hard drive, he computer went right back to doing what I described above.

This all started because I was going to check all 4 drives, defrag all 4 drives, and then dual boot the latest version of Ubuntu (on the boot drive that currently has windows installed). After this disk check issue started, I went into the BIOS, changed the primary boot source to my optical drive and threw in the Ubuntu boot disk. I can boot into Ubuntu just fine, so that would lead me to believe I do not have an issue with my hardware, but rather something with the Windows registry.

Any ideas?

[chubby ninja]

def a windows boot prob.. do u have access to a windows cd? just do the registry repair and that should fix your prob... sounds like its just missing the bootmgr

[travis2k2rf]

Ya, I have the windows disk.

I'm not too familiar with using the windows boot disk (aside from a plain old install), would you please provide me some more direction as to where I would find the registry repair option?

When I load the disk (on my working laptop) I get the following option: Install Windows XP, Learn more about the setup process, Install optional Windows components, Perform additional tasks, and Check system compatibility.

[Firestorm540]

What all is listed under the Boot Execute value?


Edit: Have you tired selecting the Last Known Good configuration when Windows boots, or does chkdsk take control before you are able to? (Not sure if it does or not)

[paintballbum]

Originally Posted by travis2k2rf

Ya, I have the windows disk.

I'm not too familiar with using the windows boot disk (aside from a plain old install), would you please provide me some more direction as to where I would find the registry repair option?

When I load the disk (on my working laptop) I get the following option: Install Windows XP, Learn more about the setup process, Install optional Windows components, Perform additional tasks, and Check system compatibility.

heres how you do it:

1) boot from xp cd
2) keep continuing through the install process until you come to the part where you see your hard drives (right after EULA)
3) press "R"
4) follow the steps after that, it will look like a normal windows install process but it's not

[travis2k2rf]

Originally Posted by Firestorm540

What all is listed under the Boot Execute value?


Edit: Have you tired selecting the Last Known Good configuration when Windows boots, or does chkdsk take control before you are able to? (Not sure if it does or not)

When I went in the first time, nothing. Then I set it to "autocheck autochk *" but after I restarted that did nothing. So, I booted with the BartPE disk again and it was empty again.

All I get is the usual flash through the BIOS screen (so I have time to enter the BIOS menu) and then it goes straight to chkdsk.

[Firestorm540]

Although I do not have this problem, both XP based laptops here are set to the following:

autocheck autochk *
lsdelete

I am away from my main machine atm out of town, so I unfortunately can't be of more help in trying to replicate the problem and using BartPE to test my theories . HOWEVER - I do know that if lsdelete is malfunctioning, it can sometimes cause issues in chkdsk, so the two are related.

Could you also check something for me? I am curious to know how many control sets you have in your registry. If you are able to search, search for ControlSet001, ControlSet002, etc. (numbering scheme should remain the same). Then, could you also check the value for the following keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Select and check/make note of the values Current, Default, Failed and LastKnownGood. That way we can kind of determine which control set is being loaded by default when you try to boot and hopefully diagnose from there.

Sorry if my post is a bit scattered, there is an Alien marathon on AMC

[travis2k2rf]

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM, there is only ControlSet001

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM\Select:

Current: 0x00000001
Default: 0x00000001
Failed: 0x00000000
LastKnownGood: 0x00000001

[Firestorm540]

Hm. That is somewhat odd. Windows usually has multiple "control sets" so if there is a bad setting in one of them, you can choose another set that worked before. I'm not about to recommend creating another control set, as I am not exactly sure what all that entails in pointing to the new set.

However, my advice would be to try to edit the BootExecute file again and try to get the changes to stick, adding the lines "autocheck autochk *" and
"lsdelete". However, instead of just trying to add to the BootExecute that you referenced in your original post, try to search (if BartPE supports that) for other BootExecute entries. In my situation, I have another BootExecute in my other control cases, at the locations: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet*\Control\Sess ion Manager, where the * is the number of the control set...I believe in your case it would be 001. I think this may be the BootExecute that needs to be edited.

If worse comes to worse, a repair install of XP may be in store, as noted above by another user. This will not effect any of your personal documents, just XP system files (though I think you may have to update, as it will restore the system files to whichever service pack/version was on the disc).

Hope this helps!

[travis2k2rf]

Throughout this whole ordeal, I never attempted "last known good configuration," so I tried it just now and it booted up without incident

Here's what went on before that:

• I tried starting in safe mode again and it did the same thing. It starts running these lines of text and it hangs up at "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\Syste m32\Drivers\Mup.sys"
• The chkdsk loop was starting with my partitioned drive (drives y and z), but when I tried both chkntfs and chkdsk with the /x and the drive letter, both read "cannot open volume for direct access" actually, chkntfs came back as a unrecognized command
• I ran the chkdsk for C and it came back fine
• I tried "chkdsk /x z" and it came back "The type of file is system is RAW, Cannot lock current drive, chkdsk is not avaliable for RAW drives"
• "format y:" or "format z:" (the two partitions) both return "invalid drive specification"

If I can't get chkdsk to work from the cmd line for my partitioned drive, that's probably why it sits there and loops upon startup. What else is weird is why it's thinking its in RAW format, I am almost certain I formatted the drives, and I know I have data on one of the partitions, they should be NTFS


All that may seem slightly disjointed because it came out of a Gchat convo I was having

[Firestorm540]

Interesting. So you are able to boot with 'Last known good config'? If so - are you able to view the Y/Z partitions in windows explorer?

I have seen something similar to the 'infinite chkdsk loop' - on a drive that I had that contained numerous (recoverable) errors, chkdsk would run once per error, reboot and go again until it encountered the next error. The whole process took from 4 - 8 hours (I went to sleep during it and it finished at some point in the night). That is really strange though that Windows is detecting it as RAW. As mentioned in your original post - do you still have the ability to dual bot Ubuntu? If so, can you mount the Y/Z partitions and check what kind of format that it 'sees' them as? Hopefully this is just some silly software error and not a hard drive issue!

[travis2k2rf]

I have not actually installed Ubuntu, I booted from the CD once, but that worked fine.

To answer your first question, yes, the Y and Z partitions are visible from explorer and appear as NTFS format.

[plushdragon]

I seen some of these error with small biz with external drives. one way we got out of the loop was to unplug the extra drives. you may have to pull the power plug on the storage drive too.