XP Pro logs off as soon as it has completed logging on![Dual boot with Linux]

About a week after installing LinuxMint Bianca as a dual-boot system with Grub, my Windows system failed to complete the boot process - recovered once and ran for a day, but not since (~2 months ago).

Every time I select Win XP from the Grub menu, it boots, accepts my log-on (which is actually a plain Return) and proceeds to Load my personal preferences. It then plays its little tune and promptly announces Logging off - Saving your personsal preferences - and then offers the log-on/shut down option box again - repeatedly if I keep on trying. I suspect a corrupt file which is called by System at the completion of Log-on. I could replace this from an installation in my laptop if anyone can tell me which it is - all my Windows system files are accessible from my LinuxMint installation - now Cassandra.

BTW, I believe my Win XP installation was originally a DriveImage - there are 2 others in my system but they both fail to boot, reporting a corrupt hal.dll file.

I am very reluctant to do another Installation - my Win CD is OEM, with only SP1 - I have SP2 on CD but there would be loads of updates to install and also probably validation - though I suspect that Images don't demand validation.

Any ideas?

Yours hopefully, -

Theo Tulley.

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Hi Theo Tulley.

See if you can boot to the Safe Mode account: Press the F8 key just after the BIOS's POST (power-on-self-test) but before XP starts to load. Choose the Safe Mode option. If the NTFS driver is corrupted then I doubt you will be able to do this.

I found this:
"corrupted NTFS.sys" is usually caused by a physical bad hard disk, corrupted file system or bad memory.

What kind of OS Restore/Installation/Recovery system came with your PC ? CDs ?

 

Win XP Pro logs off et c.

Thanks WinCrazy:
I did try booting to Safe Mode but the same thing happened.

I'm reasonably confident that's it's a corrupt filesystem- but only in this 1 executable file which if someone will identify I could replace.

As I said in my original post, I have a CD with SP1 so re-installation would mean adding SP2 separately and loads of updates.

I need to know just which of the many small exe files in Windows is responsible for terminating the log-in process and opening the working screen - presumably initiating the Start-up process. I can access them via LinuxMint, and could replace a faulty one from my laptop, also running XP Pro, fully updated, or from one of the other DriveImages.
With many thanks,

Yours sincerely, -

Theo Tulley.

 

I missed the fact that you said you have the XP OEM CD version SP1 and that you had installed SP2.

If you boot off the XP CD do the option to run the "Repair Console ". The sole purpose of this utility is to fix problems such as the one you have.

When Repair Console starts you will be in text mode with a command prompt, "< ". Enter this command:
> chkdsk c: /f {Enter}

This will check and repair the file system if there are any file system errors. If you have corrupted files, then those files will remain corrupted, but at least the file system will be solid.

You then need to run the System File Checker (SFC), but the SP version of the XP CD must match that of the PC installation. There is a way of creating an SP2 version of the XP disc from the SP1 disc you have now. This method is call "slipstreaming ". The easiest way to do this is by using a free program called Nlite. The good PC that you will be doing this on also needs to have the MS program installed called MS .NET Framework. The Nlite program looks somewhat formidable, but if you just do the minimum of incoporating SP2 into the XP CD this procedure will be straightforward.

Nlite 1.3.5

MS .NET Framework 2.0

The process starts by you copying the entire contents of the XP CD into a folder on the hard drive. Nlite then incorporates the SP2 contents and write out the XP-SP2 CD-to-be contents into another folder. Finally, the XP-SP2 folder contents are burnt to a blank CD. From then on you will never have to install SP2 as a separate upgrade - it will already be there when you use the new XP CD ti reinstall XP.

Once you have your new CD you can go back to your ailing system, boot using the new XP CD, run Repair Console and issue the command:
> sfc /scannow {Enter}
This should repair any corrupted XP OS files.

If worse comes to worse, you can always reinstall XP using the new XP CD and the original registration code. Loading all the SP2 hotfixes/updates will take only about 30 minutes and it's all automatic.

 

Thanks!

Many thanks to WinCrazy for a very careful reply. I have been very busy and haven't yet had time to try, but have downloaded sysresccd-ppc-0.2.0 in preparation. I will report when I've tried - may be a week or two.

Thanks Arie - the system was protected by fully-updated Grisoft Anti-Malware AVG. My laptop runs AVG-free and also is fully updated.
With many thanks,

Yours sincerely, -



Theo Tulley.