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Inspiron 580 BOOTMGR Compressed Message
I did a drive compression and when trying to restart computer it now tells me the BOOTMGR is compressed. I have made a start up disc from our other Inspiron, which will allow me access to the System Recovery Options. The following error messages is what appears with each option:
a) Use recovery tool that can help fix problems starting Windows (selecting WIndows 7) - This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are strying to repair.
b) Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier (use the latest available system image or select a system image backup) - these two options lead to dead ends.
I can eventually get the System Recovery Options Menu to appear:
Startup Repair - cannot repair the computer automatically
System Restore - to use system restore you must specify which windows installation to restore
System Image Recovery - (select a system image) - the selected system image cannot be restored in this recovery environment
Command Prompt - can get in this and have renamed the bootmgr to bootmgr_old and copied across bottmgr from other Inspiron (uncompressed version), but this does not override problem.
System as follows:
BIOS Info: A05
System: Inspiron 580
Processor: Intel Core i3CPU 530 @ 2.936Hz
Processor L1 Cache: 120 kb
Processor L2 Cache: 512 kb
Processor L3 Cache: 4096 kb
Memory Installed: 2048MB
Memory Speed: 1333MHz
Memory Technology: DDR3
I do not have Windows 7 disk. Anyone have any ideas.
RoHe
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April 16th, 2012 10:00
Do you know when you compress a hard drive the way you did that the files are in the same format as files that can be expanded with the Expand command ??
And even they are in the same format, you can't expand a compressed file on a drive that's entirely compressed. You could do it on the same drive only if the individual file was compressed and the rest of the drive wasn't compressed...
Greg J is almost correct about using Expand. When a file is compressed, it's renamed, using his example, to d:\compressedfile.dl_ where an underscore ( _ ) replaces the last letter in the file name extension.
And when you use the Expand command, you only specify the destination path, and do not specify the destination file name. So you'd type this:
Expand d:\compressedfile.dl_ c:\windows\
That expands the file d:\compressedfile.dl_ and put the expanded file, now renamed compressedfile.dll, in the folder c:\windows
If what you want to do would work, people wouldn't go through all the steps spelled out on the page linked in my previous post. Try that, and if it doesn't work, then you probably will have to wipe the drive and do a clean re-install.
gregory.jones
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April 15th, 2012 04:00
If you did a whole-drive compression it's going to be more than the bootmgr that's compressed. You'll need a Windows 7 disc and if you can get one you can try a Startup Repair but it really sounds like you need to uncompress the drive. If you can't do that then I suggest reinstalling Windows, it'll be faster than copying every file over individually.
Giglios
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April 15th, 2012 05:00
Can you uncompress through the Command Prompt, it is the only access I have to the C drive?
Giglios
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April 15th, 2012 06:00
There is an "expand" command that uncompresses files. Can you this be used and what command would I type in to recover the computer, eg would the whole c: need to expanded, what command gets typed in. Here is the link for what I found, I do not understand enough to work it out.
http://ss64.com/nt/expand.html
www.computerhope.com/expandhl.htm
gregory.jones
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April 15th, 2012 06:00
I don't know if you can with Vista/7 - I found some info from an old Microsoft KB.
I stumbled across this old Phorums.au post, but it's circa 2006 & is referencing XP.
phorums.com.au/.../t-200522.html
No idea if it'll work, as I haven't compressed a drive since... erm, maybe middle school?
RoHe
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April 15th, 2012 13:00
And if you're in the USA, fill out the form here to request the Win 7 disk from Dell. They may charge you for the disk.
If you're not in the USA, you'll have to contact Dell Tech Support in your area.
RoHe
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April 15th, 2012 13:00
I presume this is Win 7 so read this.
WARNING: If you use the /fixmbr command, you will probably (likely!) lose all access to Dell's PC Restore partition on the hard drive which resets the drive to exactly the way Dell shipped it (eg, restores the factory image). I don't know if there's any other way to recover from this error without doing that so you'll have to decide how you want to proceed...
gregory.jones
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April 15th, 2012 13:00
You could use a utility like Acronis Disk Director to reset the Windows partition to active if this happens (if you want to pay and use a pretty GUI).
Or use the built-in CMD-prompt tools in the Windows Repair Environment to do it such as "diskpart" to list your partions then reset the volume as active.
Giglios
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April 16th, 2012 07:00
Why is everyone mentioning partitions? What about the 'expand' DOS command, what does it do? Do not understand the last 3 emails sent, none of the mention this DOS command. Can you help clear this up for me. Many thanks.
gregory.jones
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April 16th, 2012 07:00
"EXPAND" is an older DOS command that is little used. It's designed so that (back in the olden day of 5.0) you could expand the files off of one disk onto another as part of an OS install. So If you wanted to do this it'd be akin to:
Expand d:\compressedfile.dll c:\expandedfile.dll
I don't think you can do this on the same disc, so you can't go from C: to C:
It's also an early version of the more commonly called .ZIP file type nowadays.
So all that is to say, no you can't use it to help your situation. You can try uncompressing all of your files to a different hard drive then installing that drive to attempt to boot but I'd put you chances at slim-to-none for success via that route. Plus you'd have to know what the compressed file is called and know the proper name for that file in it's expanded form. In addition I believe your boot.ini file would need to be modified as if you Windows install is on C: and you copy everything to a separate drive (D: for example) the boot.ini file will be looking for C:\ not D:\
Bite the bullet: reinstall your OS - it's going to be 10x faster and 1000x less of a headache.
If you have data on the compressed drive that you need/want connect that drive to another system with an adapter and pull it off to another computer first.
Giglios
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April 16th, 2012 11:00
Thanks everyone for your help. I guess I'm [TOU Removed] until next week possibly longer until the other half gets home to sort out my tech support. I was hoping to be able to fix it before then. Arrrrrgh. So frustrating, my only thought is why would windows not have a fail safe where you could never ever ever compress files it needs to use during start up!!!!!! Stupid me assumed when the files were compressed that the computer would know better than to "lock itself" and make if unuseable. Although given how many versions of Word have been released and with all the functions you can "default" but there is still no "default" button for tabs am I not surprised.
RoHe
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April 16th, 2012 12:00
Guess you have to ask Mr. Gates about that...!
You can try the /fixboot command described at that link and then see if it boots. If that doesn't fix it then use /fixmbr, with the cavaet I noted above.
As soon as you get this fixed, back up all your files on external media asap, to be safe.
Good luck and let us know if you have additional questions.
(I'm surprised the forum's *** filter didn't catch that word in the second sentence of your last post. :emotion-4: )