This used to be a lot easier to do, last time I had to do this 11 years ago. :mad: I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there’s no easy way to do this for security reasons.
The sad story: friend’s computer, running XP, has picked up a bad problem. She powers up, waits for Windows to load, and clicks on the icon for her name (she’s not password protected). Windows starts… and then less than a second later, signs her off.
Same deal trying to run in safe mode, whether clicking on her icon or Administrator.
I’ve researched the problem, and found that it’s well-documented. We need the WindowsXP CD to solve the problem. Does friend have this CD? Unfortunately, no.
For now, we want to at minimum get some essential files off of the hard drive. If I can just get to a C: prompt, I can use DOS commands to do this.
That does not appear to be an option at startup of the computer, though. I have tried making a bootable floppy. What I’ve got will cause the PC to boot to the A: drive… but the C: drive isn’t recognized (thanks guys, that doesn’t help… although I suppose I should have guessed).
So I need to do two things: get a bootable disk together that does allow full access to all drives from a DOS prompt, and get it onto a CD-ROM (friend, of course, does not have a floppy drive). I do not know how to do either of these things, but will find out… but before I go to the trouble, is there an easier way to do what I’m trying to do? Would be grateful to smack my own head over the obvious, simple thing I’ve overlooked.
A few ideas. You may have thought of them already. Have you tried booting to Safe Mode with the command line option? Or else you can put together a boot CD on another PC like BartPE which should let you get to the C: drive.
When Windows is starting, press F8 to get to the startup options screen. You’ll need to be quick off the mark. One of the options will be to start with a command prompt.
If you have a computer why can’t you just plug her hard drive into your computer, grab the necessary files, and then wipe the drive/reinstall XP? To get the files back on to her clean box, either put your hard drive in her machine and copy, or burn from your machine to a disk.
In situations like this I have used Linux “Live CD” distributions, like Knoppix, which launch totally from a CD. It’s a little geeky for many, but it may be the right tool for the job.
You will see your local hard drive on the desktop. You can then plug in a thumb drive and copy stuff from the hard drive to the thumb drive.
I once retrieved some important files for my wife using this method when her hard drive was corrupted.
Thanks for all the quick replies! I didn’t see an option to start with a command prompt when I hit F8, but I may have missed that :rolleyes:
Projammer, thanks for the link… that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I do see what I need to do to get the image onto a CD. Doable, but… yuck.
I’ll also find out about slaving her hard drive to my laptop, if that really is an easier way to go. Reluctant to do that because it’s not really my laptop, it’s my employer’s.
Doing it to a laptop is a little trickier, you need something like this.
I think the easiest solution would be to burn a live CD copy of Knoppix, then copy the files off the old hard drive onto a USB key. Burning a CD from a command prompt is going to be difficult if not impossible (plus, I’m not sure how well a live CD O/S will function when the CD is removed from the drive).
If you can get the command prompt in safe mode working, there’s a decent chance you’ll also be able to write to a USB key, but I’ve never tried it.
Looking back, I see that minor7flat5 had the same advice, but I’ll keep this reply in anyway because I gave you the links.