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FengShuiNinja
4 Posts
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July 11th, 2006 14:00
Windows XP startup problem on XPS gen 3
The road to get here has been long and hard. Hopefully you can laugh at the journey. The computer in question is a fully loaded XPS gen 3. And now for the story of pain... :-)
I wake up yesterday and I see the message that everyone wants to see on their computer. "\windows\system32\config\system is missing or corrupt." I can already tell that this is going to be a great day. The following are the steps that I have gone through to fix it and get here.
1. Check out information online. Try to restart windows using last known good configuration. This does not work of course.
2. Attempt to use the recovery utility to fix things the hard way. I boot it up and I dont even the chance to enter "md tmp". All I get is an "access denied" message. Well since I have not even been given a chance to enter a password I am a little surprised. I look around online and am told that this is often a "feature" on Dell computers and other computer makers. I need a password that I dont have and cant enter. The information might be on my Windows CD but I cant get to it without talking to Dell tech support. This is beginning to to get fun!
3. Try to use my Windows XP disc to repair my computer. I follow the steps found online. When I get to the point under the installation menu that I should be able to choose a copy of XP to repair it is not listed as an option. My CD knows that a copy of XP is present but it does not give me the option to fix it. Apparently this is another "feature" from Dell and co that is present on their versions of the Windows CDs. Hmmm I am starting to sense I pattern here....
4. Look around online some more and get told that I may have to do a restore on my computer. Normally this would not be a problem because I back up all of my files onto DVD once a month but I have a couple files that I recently created that I really need to have. So I have to be able to get those files.
5. Talk to one of my tech friends who comes over to help. Before I can blink he installs a SECOND copy of Windows XP to my computer. This creates a sort of dual personality on my computer but at least now it can start up so I was able to move the needed files to a pen drive. Yay! \o/
6. Its time for a system restore! I decide that I really dont want to deal with my split personality computer. I still cant boot up the primary copy of windows and the secondary copy doesnt recognize that I have anything on the computer at all. I figure I can just restore it and start over. Unfortunately I am told that because I have an XPS the and F11 keys do not initiate a system restore. I have a gaming computer so they give me the flexibility to decide what to reinstal. All I have to do is start up my computer and start the process. But since my copy of windows that has everything on it cant start up how am I supposed to do this? I refuse to think that I am the first XPS owner to confront this problem.
7. Dell tech support time. I am told that since my warranty has expired I will need to pay $49 to get help. I cant really afford it but I agree because I REALLY need my computer working. The tech guy tells me that he can easily help me and it should only take about 10 minutes. (This guy must know the secret codes to access the information on my CD.) But before we can move forward I need to pay $100-$200 for the help! Ok this is way beyond what I can afford. I would gladly donate blood/hair/anything at this point but cash is one thing I just dont have.
8. I come to the Dell forums for help. I have spent a good 18 hours trying to fix this problem. (A depressing large amount of time I know.) You guys are my last resort. "Help me Obi-Wan...."
I would prefer to fix my primary copy of windows, remove the secondary copy and just move forward, happy as a clam. Of course I realize this may not happen so if I cant repair the computer I am willing to go through the restore but I dont know how to start the process. (I now have the important files.) Any help that you guys can give me would be great.
FengShuiNinja
416
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Posted July 11th, 2006 14:00
It does not even give me the option of entering a password. :smileysad:
416
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Posted July 11th, 2006 15:00
FengShuiNinja,
The fastest and best solution to your problem (particularly since your perishable data is already backed up) is to do a clean install of Windows XP. That will get rid of your corrupted copy and the second copy as well. (I'm willing to bet that is the $100 worth of information you would have received from Dell.)
416
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Posted July 11th, 2006 16:00
It doesn't have split personalities. You simply have than one hard drive. And your freind installed a second OS in the hard drive so you kinda have like a back-up.416
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Posted July 12th, 2006 01:00
Good news everybody. I was finally able to get my primary version of windows to work by following step number 4 in the following Dell article. 0619229JFQ
Unfortunately I have two last issues.
1. My primary OS now starts up rather slowly. Could this be a side-effect of having that second copy of XP installed?
2. Internet Explorer will no longer get online. It says the following in the error message "Internet Explorer cannot download / from www.msn.com Internet explorer was not able to open the internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later." Is this related to my slow startup? No browser window opens. But MSN messenger still starts up just fine though.
So how do I go about removing the second copy of XP? And will this speed up my startup? If not, how do I diagnose the problem?
FengShuiNinja
Message Edited by FengShuiNinja on 07-11-200609:23 PM
Message Edited by FengShuiNinja on 07-11-200609:33 PM
Mary G
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20095 Posts
416
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Posted July 11th, 2006 14:00