XP Won't boot up just keeps restarting

Hi guys I'm New to this, have never used a forum before..so please I apologise beforehand for my inexperience.

I really need help with this..After a Master Harddrive Fail (where My system Drive would not even start after the PC was switched off for a month).I have not stopped having problems. The faulty hard drive (IDE) has been replaced with a Sata 1TB Drive. The way this has been done is by utilizing a PCI Card as the mother board is a bit old and does not handle Sata. The driver for this PCI Card Is Called Promise Fast Track TX2200.

I had 2 other HDs one an IDE internal and 1 another IDE (both 400GB) as an external back up drive. Something Happened, very soon after the XP was reloaded onto the new Sata Drive that made the Scandisc work during boot up and changed both IDE drives filing systems to RAW and thus all my back up and Music etc was gone...This is not my present problem as i have taken that one on the chin and still trying to recover all the data back from these two IDE drives.

My biggest present problem is that this morning i was in the middle of writing an email and suddenly all the programs started to close, t6he pc asked me if i wanted to save the email that i was writing and then shut down.

Now everytime i try to restart, it wiil only boot up to when the "we apologize but windows could not start....." with options to start in safemode,.....etc. None of these options work though. whichever option I choose the pc will restart and back to the same spot again! the only difference is that with safe mode, before the pc restarts, it brings up a whole screen of the location where windows is installed etc eg. disc(0)PARTITION1 /WINDOWS/drivers... These are the bits that I could read as this is displayed for a very short time before it reboots again.

I really need some help.

Thank you in advance

Mark

 

Hi mvsl

Do you have the Windows Setup Disc?
If so we can try two options:
1. CheckDisk (not scandisk) from the Recovery Console chkdsk /r
2. A system Repair, Repair does not remove any User data.

Also note to recover your "Raw" data, I use: ZAR
ZAR is free for up to 4 folders down, ie:
C:\Documents and Setting\(UserName)\My Documents\My Pictures

 

yes i do have the windows disc...I really don't want to loose any data as i have no back ups at all at present.

 

Boot from the Windows Setup CD
Log into the Recovery Console (this is the first "R" prompt)
Select Administrator (you press "1" only)
Then press Enter
Likely no password so press enter again
Type: chkdsk /r and then press Enter key
Once CheckDisk has finished checking\Repairing your system, restart and hopefully boot into Windows

 

when i boot from cd, (as i have tried this and was not sure all was going right, and stopped it) it does not give me the option to Log into the Recovery Console. it just start copying files.. is that normal? As I said i'm very afraid of loosing all my files

 

This is a Windows Setup Disc not a Manufacturer (Dell; HP etc etc) Recovery disc?

If you are talking about Windows "loading" drivers, this is normal
Nothing is being copied, to your hard drive

 

OK maybe its not the windows disc then..it says product recovery CD rom...Support for these products is provided by OCEAN OfficePTY Windows XP Home edition SP1.

Is this the right disc?

 

Download this free Recovery Console ISO, and burn it to a new disc, then boot from it:
http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso
I use free ImgBurn to burn ISOs http://www.imgburn.com/

Boot from the newly created "RC" BootCd
Log into the Recovery Console
Type: chkdsk /r and then press Enter key
Once CheckDisk has finished checking\Repairing your system, restart and hopefully boot into Windows

 

the screens , when i put it in the cd romm did look like the ones on repair link that you sent me earlier in this thread as i remember it asking if "you would like to install a third party scasi or Raid driver "

In this case would i need to install the driver for the pci card at this stage?

 

ok Mate I will try this and hopefully it will work..Cheers

 

You do not need to install the "F6" driver ever
The only time you need to install this driver is on a clean install, of which you don't want to do

 

Further to your above quote
The "F6" is not mentioned in the guide I posted

The Repair guide I posted states: (at the F6 picture)

We are presently not doing a Repair anyway!
We are doing a CheckDisk

 

"Boot from the newly created "RC" BootCd
Log into the Recovery Console
Type: chkdsk /r and then press Enter key
Once CheckDisk has finished checking\Repairing your system, restart and hopefully boot into Windows "

I have done the above and the PC says "the volume appears to have one or more unrecoverable problems "

 

It is not common that chkdsk /r cannot repair the problems
You did use /r I hope?

Basically you write: chkdsk
Then you press the space bar once
Then you type /r
Then you press enter

By the way I've looked up this "OCTEK" company, but I'm tring to find out what their "Recovery" CD actually does.
ie Normally in all other cases, the Recovery CD will ASK you do you want to fully recover your computer
It won't just start copying files

EDIT
I found this: http://support.octek.com.au/FAQ/faq_0056.htm

 

yes that is exactly what i have done...with the disc, maybe i did not let it go far enough as it did look like it was going to do the same thing that this new disc did...I paniced

 

By The way, thank you for spending your time to give me a hand with this problem. I really appreciate it

 

I have tried the whole thing again...just in case i did the wrong thing but still got the same result

 

Oh dear.

Also, I must mention please stop replying to yourself.
You may see that I'm quick to respond, but by you replying all the time, I then get a new email, and then check the forum again, wondering if you will reply yet again!
Instead of replying to yourself, use the EDIT button, to add to your last post, if your post is still the last post in the thread (presently not)

The fault above looks to be a Partition issue
I think at this stage its best we try to backup all data

Here we go with another BootCd
Download Knoppix (free BootCD and OS)
Click on the large Download box
Select a download Server close to you
Accept the download agreement
Download the ISO and burn to CD
Note: I use free ImgBurn to burn ISO images

Once the disc has been made, boot from it and startup Knoppix
You will need a USB drive or blank CD to backup your data

-----

Alternatively you can place your drive in another computer as "slave ", but this will take more technical ability

 

Hey, sorry for the confusion that i'm in at present, as i said before i have never used any forums before..I am in the process to do as per your instructions. Thanks again.

what is the exact file name that i need to download as there are a lot of different ones

 

Looking at one of the Servers: ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/

It is the one with EN.ISO at the end of the file-name