I have an older computer I have been playing with and had some troubles with it and finally had gotten that fixed, or so I thought.

That was about 3 weeks or so ago and you can read about it here:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/desktops/compaq-windows-xp-60gb-256kb-not-booting-169976.html



Since I finally got it to boot up after the last ordeal, have had no troubles until this morning. Was about 3am when I went to bed and left my computer on. At 5am when my husband came in he said that it said something about "an error had occured due to adding hardware or software and that if it was the first time to seen this message, restart and if necessary push F8 and start in safe mode" and on the bottom it stated something about "starting dump of physical memory, dump was complete"

Upon restarting, you get the message:

A Disk Read Error has Occurred
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart

However I continue to get the same thing over and over.

So, I thought I'd go into Recovery Console and try to fix like I did before

However, none of the commands work

I have the

C:\WINDOWS>

When I type CD. . To change to the parent directory it says:

C:\WINDOWS>CD. .
The parameter is not valid. Try /? For help.

If I put CD.. (without space between the "(. .)" I get

C:\WINDOWS>CD..
The path or file specified is not valid.

If I try the FIXBOOT I get this

C:\WINDOWS>FIXBOOT

The target partition is C:
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?

I select Yes

And get-

C:\WINDOWS>FIXBOOT

The target partition is C:
Are you sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?
The file system on the startup partition is NTFS.

FIXBOOT cannot open the partition.


If I try to use the ATTRIB to change the boot.ini file so I can delete it I get this

C:\WINDOWS>ATTRIB -H BOOT.INI
The path or file specified is not valid.


When I use the map command I get this-

C:\WINDOWS>MAP

C: NTFS 34168MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
D: FAT32 3995MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
A: \Device\Floppy0
E: \Device\CdRom0


I have tried several others too.

No luck.

No hardware or software changes were made by me. I did also notice that the harddisk turns off after being inactive for a certain amount of time and I had all that changed to NEVER turn harddisk off.

EDIT: About a week or so ago I loaded OFFICE 2007 PRO onto the system.



I don't have a backup of the hard drive but I am not concerned, my most important files I have off there. The unreplacable ones anyhow.

I have read many places today that this can happen and it isn't the hard drive so I don't want to go buy a hard drive if this isn't the problem.



Any suggestions?


p.s. I don't have the recovery cds that came with the computer, the only cd I have is the Windows XP install disk that came with my Dell system and this is a compaq system.

See if this will work for you, download and copy to a bootable floppyand start comp with flopy and run the fix file - not sure it will work without getting into the system , can't hurt to try

07/29/2004
XP_FIX.EXE
(140 Kb)
http://www.visualtour.com/downloads/xp_fix.exe


This installaton program will reinstall the missing or corrupt Windows XP system files command.com, autoexec.nt and config.nt. The absence or corruption of one or more of these files causes a "16 Bit Subsystem" error.

We recommend that you download this file and save it to your desktop or to another location where you can find it. Double click on the file to run it once it's downloaded. If problem reoccurs in the future, simply re-run this program

Just want to make sure I am understanding you correctly.

Download the file and save it on a floppy.

Boot the computer up using that floppy disk?


Also, when hooking up a hard drive as a slave, does it and the master need to have the same OS on them?

Like the computer I am using now has Windows 98 SE on it. Could I slave it to this computer?

Which ever drive is the master, the computer will boot with that hardrive and the 2nd drive set as a slave should be able to be seen on the system that was booted

Note: when hooking 2 drives - the master drive has to be on the gray ribbon cable on the end of the ribbon cable and the slave drive would be hooked up to the middle connector on the ribbon cable

Now for your instance you need to get the system running to use this file
What I would try to do is make a bootable floppy with the drive in that has the problem in the computer as master (don't worry about a slave here) basically the way it is when you get the error

Now copy the file downloaded to the bootable floppy and start the problem PC with the floppy in it to get to a dos prompt and then run the fix file to see if that will work
I'm not sure if it will, but it's worth a try

Here is a link to make a bootable floppy for ntfs
How to create a bootable floppy disk for an NTFS or FAT partition in Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595)

If this down't work, can look for another posibility

now copy the file downloaded to the bootable floppy and start the problem pc with the floppy in it to get to a dos prompt and then run the fix file to see if that will work
I'm not sure if it will, but it's worth a try




I downloaded the setup floppy disk from microsoft's website. There are 6 of them. From what that link said, I should delete everything off the first disk and then add the Ntldr and the Ntdetect files and then the boot.ini file... this is the disk I'd use to boot up and copy the file you told me to download to, right?

You said run the fix file in the dos prompt... I'll Google to see how to do that.

You got it
You could make a new diskette and leave the 6 alone, you may use them one day
All you need on a blank disk to bot is "Ntldr and the Ntdetect files and then the boot.ini "
And then add the fix file and boot with floppy

Like I mentioned above it's worth a try and can't hurt, if not need to go from there and probalby reinstall the operating system, do you have an install disk for windows just in case

I think I am just going to buy a new hard drive and install windows on it. I am pretty sure this one is going, just glad I got it to work again the last time so I could get the pictures off it and other important files.

Thanks for all your help.