Tag Archives: error message

Troubleshooting a hard drive. Keywords: XP, repair, Symantec, drive letter, shutdown, NTFS, live CD.?

I tried to troubleshoot a Dell computer with the Windows XP media center edition. Windows appears to be starting up, but it reaches the welcome screen and stays there. I tried booting from a Symantec recovery disc from a Norton Systemworks Premier package in hopes of restoring the most recent settings, but the software couldn’t see the hard drive. I tried to repair the installation with a Windows XP OS CD, but it didn’t seem to see the hard drive, either. I thought I could at least leave an Ubuntu Linux live CD so the owner could access the Internet, and after it loaded, it could see the hard drive. I tried to click on the main partition, and the following error message was displayed:

Cannot mount volume.
Unable to mount the volume.
Details
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0,0) Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda2′: Operation not supported Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use.

There was more, but I’m running out of space. Is there any way to get back into Windows as it was?

Problems with Compaq Presario c300 laptop?

My girlfriend’s laptop has been experiencing some issues. It BSoD’d her, crashed, and kept auto-restarting to the boot choices menu. No matter what option was picked, it would just auto-restart to the menu after the Windows splash screen. She doesn’t have an XP cd, since they don’t usually come with HP laptops. We tried the built in recovery, but it crashed in the middle of repartitioning the hard drive, and now each time it is booted up, it can get to BIOS and boot settings, but after that, the error message that Windows root/system32@/hal.dll is corrupted or missing and needs replaced. Well, we can’t do much to it without the XP cd. Almost every solution online requires the disc. No other machine to hook it up to. No extra hd. Any help or ideas? I thought about recovery LiveCD’s and smaller Linux distros/utilities, but since I don’t live close by, I need something she can learn to do on her own(she isn’t very computer savvy).

Vista startup problem – Documents folder opens on startup. Help?!?

So when i start my computer it brings up the log-on screen and i type in my password and it hangs saying welcome with that spinning blue circle thing next to it and then brings up the documents folder with nothing else but empty blackness. Somewhere I saw an article saying it was a registry error probably caused by a virus and that an edit of this would fix it (cant remember the path). So i tried it by doing something like finding an entry with the value ‘userinit.exe’ (no quotes, and yes i meant to put that comma there) and I restarted my computer and it came up and said it couldn’t boot, ran diagnostics or something and obviously fixed the error. But my main problem remains. explorer.exe does run, but it is not the desktop, it is the my documents folder. It may be running the wrong explorer.exe. These processes are, however, running whilst i am running task manager – ‘csrss.exe’, ‘dwm.exe’, ‘taskeng.exe’, ‘taskmgr.exe’ (obviously while I’m running task manager), and ‘winlogon.exe’. I am pretty sure that this is a virus because on one of my accounts, it brings up a window asking for admin privileges to run a Windows Update file by an unidentified publisher. of course i hit no and then my AVG Free Antivirus asks if i want to move it to my virus vault. if i hit yes, windows will come up with an error message for this file saying it isnt there, so i put it back. Its in a folder like ‘C:UsersAppDataLocalWindows-UpdateKBxxxxxx.exe’ (where the x’s represent numbers). I have made a new account and it took about 2 minutes to create my desktop, then didnt apply the usual transparent theme, but a windows 9x type theme until i hit File, New Task, and typed explorer.exe. then it loaded the desktop. I run Vista Home Premium and i believe i had the same problem on my old pc running XP home premium, but only on one profile. I know that he easiest alternative is a reinstall, but i would like to avoid this if at all possible. I hope that i havent given to much info. Remember that i will award 10 points to the best answer. Also I am considering switching to using a portable version of Linux, if anyone could point me in the direction of a working guide to install Linux on a cd with a live file system, or a usb hard drive, i MAY award 10 points if i do not get a working reply for my original question.
ty for the help, i knew i should have added that, i have done multiple scans with AVG and Spybot S&D, but thanks so much for your help

What is wrong with this hard drive?

My computer restarted the other night and afterwards I got a “DISK BOOT ERROR PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRES ENTER” message. I loaded up a linux live cd and I’m able to access the hard drive and salvage my data but I am not able to format the drive. When I attempt to format it doesn’t start, then gives me an error message.

Which version of Linux should I get?

I sent for a live CD of Ubuntu and loved the interface and all. Problem: after I installed it, when I had to restart, it gave me a black screen full of gibberish white text and just stayed there. I turned off the computer and it acted normal on restart, but then when I tried to download the updates, it did the black screen again – this time with a weird looping error message. I got fed up, unplugged the computer, and reinstalled windows XP.

Did I get a faulty disk, or is Ubuntu always this crazy? And if it is, which version of linux should I get instead? If it makes a difference, my main activities on a computer are gaming, watching videos, web surfing and word processing. I would really like to switch if there’s a version that can be relied on. Thank you!