XP Won't Start at all; Only C:\> Black Screen

I moved my PC and it has been inactive for two months. I restarted it and now can only get a brief flash of the Windows flag icon. After that I get an old 80s style black screen with C:/>. I have tried what little I can remember from then with little success. I can cd to get C:/>WINDOWS but nothing else. The C prompt doesn't even recognize the various drive specifications in the computer. I don't have my recovery disks (they are in storage). I tried to reinstall an old Windows 98 CD but those instructions said that I shouldn't proceed since I already had a DOS installed. It seems that XP is there, I just can't get to it. Can anyone suggest any workaround that doesn't require my recovery discs? Thanks and good luck all around.

 

What do you get typing dir/w at the c:> prompt? How about when you type
dir b*.ini?

 

dir/w and dir b*.ini

Sparrow, dir/w gets me "Volume in drive C has no label, Volume serial number is 114B-0AE9 Directory of C:\ and then a listing of my various files and directories, incluiding [WINDOWS], autoexec.bat, etc. 13 files 22 + bytes 23 dir 36MB free.

dir b*.ini gets me same as above (Volume in drive C has no label etc.) but no directory listing only File not found and 36 MB free.

is there any hope?

Thanks and good luck.

Victor

 

Victor,
BTW, welcome to the forum. We've established that XP is on a FAT32 partition, and you don't have a boot.ini file; I'm not sure how to get XP started from DOS, like you can type win in win98. Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe is the first file to load when XP starts, and I'd try, at c:>
windows\system32\ntoskrnl
and pray. At least it can't hurt anything. Meanwhile, I'll do some searching for more info.
GL

Edit: 36MB free is pretty tight! You may have to make more room in that disk so the swap file will function. How big is the disk?

 

Doesn't Look Good

Sparrow, the command only gets me "Data Error Reading Drive C" . And 36 MB isn't a lot of space and doesn't sound at all right, although the unit is 2 to 3 years old I am always big on space and RAM (I figure it can't hurt, might help) so I think it should have at least 1.2G if not more, if I could have bought that much a coupla years ago. Thanks for the welcome on board. Victor

 

Next step:

Get a windows startup disk, boot it and at a:> type edit and copy/paste the following (bold text) and save as a file named boot.ini on the floppy.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "XP" /fastdetect

Then copy boot.ini to c:\. Now reboot and pray some more.

Note: No space in windows! It's put there by the forum.

Edit2: Do the copy/paste in notepad on your current computer; just make sure to save it as boot.ini, not boot.ini.txt or boot.txt - tab to file type in 'save as' and select all files, then shift+tab to file name and when correct, save.

 

Didn't Work

Sparrow, Alas, this didn't work. I put in my Win98 startup cd and got to the prompt, but it wouldn't let me type in all the command text, it just stopped about halfway through. Any other ideas? If not, I don't want to take up more of your time, I will have to face the fact I will have to take it in to the shop where I bought it. Victor

 

I edited my last post while you were working. Use notepad on your current computer and try again.

 

Victor,
Guess I'm too curt. The command text was just edit and the bold text was to be placed in boot.ini as its contents in the dos editor. No problem with your understanding; just laziness on my part re: typing.

If the 36MB is real, something happened to your disk in storage and maybe a shop is the only answer.

 

Working

Working

 

I think the game is pretty nearly up...

Sparrow, I have tried using the Win98 boot up CD and gotten Win98 Command prompt. I've entered edit, dos, edit dos, cd a through f with and without edit with no result. I've also rebooted and gotten back to the c: command prompt and tried the same series of entries (I'm tempted to say incantations!) without success. I get the feeling given the 36MB that something may have happened in transport/storage. I know I've got a DOS in there because the Win98 bootup disk tells me one is already there. I just can't access it. I think this is it for now and I'll take it to the shop, I greatly appreciate your time and trouble in this whole endeavor. Good luck and Godspeed! Victor

 

P.S. I will contribute and tell others

about the site. Good luck all around.

 

You mentioned that the comp had been in storage. Is it possible the CMOS battery has weakened or died? I would replace the battery before I took it to a shop! Battery= cheap tech= expensive.

Johanna

 

Victor,
Johanna makes a very good point. Also, if there's a chance you can get your recovery disks from storage, you'll save lots of money too. Anyway, please let us know how you come out.

 

I think taking it to a shop isnt a bad idea.

As i see it, the problem is, after storing the machine for 2 months, its now booting up to the wrong paritition/boot.ini selection.

I'd like to understand more about the 'brief flag screen' that flashes. Is it win98 or winxp's flag?

XP does not have a DOS prompt boot mode. Something is sketchy here. My first guess would be that this machine was upgraded from win98, and always had a msdos boot partition(or some recovery partition from OEM), in addition to another partition for the actual install of XP. One would expect that if the wrong partition was marked active, this could get into this state. If the battery died and it forgot what kind of disk it was connected to, it could be misreading the parititon table and defaulting to this legacy partition.

It could have had some catistrophic failure while in storage, and need to have the OS reinstalled. Hard to say without seeing the extent of the damage, and the state of the partition tables. Certainly something worth a few bucks on the bench to have done for you.