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Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run. (Read 60881 times)
Richard K
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Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Jul 5th, 2009 at 8:03pm
 
I'm the guy with the strange Partition Magic problem- it will not see my first hard disk with the OS on its C drive.

MS disk management says all partitions are healthy.

I have WinXP SP3.

I made a ghost image of the entire disk with image all as an option.

Than I tried to use the Recovery Console:

It  will not start from the XP installation disk- it says TXTSETUP.sif is missing or corrupt.

I downloaded the MS recovery console.  When I select the recovery console choice on bootup I get the BSOD.  It tells me to run chkdsk /f and that didn't help.

Microsoft's instructions for fixing the txtsetup.sif problem left my head spinning.  Can I download a copy of that file somewhere and overwrite the one in Windows?

Is this one of these battles I am not going to win?  Cry

Richard


 
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #1 - Jul 6th, 2009 at 4:24pm
 
I don't understand.  Are you trying to restore your Ghost image?  If so, you should use the Ghost recovery console.  You should also post your message on the Ghost boards.  Those guys know more than I do and they will look there first.

The Windows Recovery Console (which I think is what you are talking about...?) should be run from an XP setup disk.  It boots from the CD and is independent of your OS, so if it refuses to start that means there are serious issues with your hardware (hard drive maybe?)

Let us know a little more clearly what you are trying to do and hopefully we can provide better suggestions.
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #2 - Jul 6th, 2009 at 5:00pm
 
MrMagoo,

I think I need to repair the Master Boot Record. I got that from replies to my original post.

The computer works perfectly, as far as I can tell.  My installed Partition Magic will not recognize the first of two hard disks, the one with the OS- it is sort of greyed out.  It sees the second one fine.

Microsoft Disk Management says all partitions on both hard disks are healthy.

I can't boot from the Partition Magic CD or the rescue floppy disk.  It takes me to a DOS screen with (I think) three utilities.  I also get an error message that it can't find MSCD001, a  driver or file for the optical drive.

PM used to work fine. It was installed in Sept 2002.

Going through all this again I remember telling Diskeeper just after I bought it to do a boot time defragmentation on the C drive where the OS is located. That was April 2008. I don't know if that contributes to the problem but WinXP SP3 has never failed to start properly. 

I can't remember if I ran PM since Diskeeper was installed.

I made a Ghost image of the entire first hard disk so I would hopefully have a backup if repairing the MBR created problems.

When I tried to start the Recovery Console I started having the latest problems:

It  will not start from the XP installation disk- it says TXTSETUP.sif is missing or corrupt.

I downloaded the MS recovery console.  When I select the recovery console choice on bootup I get the BSOD.  It tells me to run chkdsk /f and that didn't help.

Probably the best thing for me to do is to ignor the PM problem, although PM has been helpful in the past.

All this complaining is because at least I wish I knew what happened to PM.  Sorry for the long post.

Richard


 
 
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Richard K
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #3 - Jul 6th, 2009 at 5:05pm
 
Well @#$#$,
I misstated.  The installed Partition Magic marks the first hard disk as Bad.
Richard
 
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #4 - Jul 6th, 2009 at 6:28pm
 
Richard K wrote on Jul 6th, 2009 at 5:00pm:
Probably the best thing for me to do is to ignor the PM problem, although PM has been helpful in the past.

All this complaining is because at least I wish I knew what happened to PM.  Sorry for the long post.

Sorry to ask the obvious, but have you tried reinstalling PM?
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #5 - Jul 7th, 2009 at 10:42am
 
Actually I did.  Had the same problem- hard disk one is bad.  Don't know why I failed to mention that.  Aren't computers wonderful?
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #6 - Jul 8th, 2009 at 12:55pm
 
@
Richard K

Quote:
Probably the best thing for me to do is to ignor the PM problem

Well....maybe not!  You now have a *bigger* problem that you have discovered--you can not use the WinXP installation disc to boot to the Recovery Console--and that issue may relate back to your PM issues!

For those who may not be *connecting the dots*, here are the other two threads that relate back to this thread:

Anybody Familiar with Partition Magic?

Repairing the MBR

Unfortunately, you did not respond to several of the questions and suggestions made in those other threads--letting the issue *drop*!

This is probably a problem that can be fixed--and probably should be--but it will take more than one or two questions and answers--are you interested and willing to follow thru?

I ran across this in the PartitionMagic User Guide:

Quote:
#105 Partition starts on wrong boundary

The hard-disk partition table contains erroneous values. PartitionMagic expects
partitions to begin and end on the correct cylinder boundaries. If they do not, the
disk may be partially corrupted. In this circumstance, if PartitionMagic were to
make any modifications it might cause the loss of data. Therefore, PartitionMagic
refuses to recognize any of the hard disk’s partitions. To resolve this problem, see
the instructions in “Resolving Partition Table Errors” on page 126.

#106 Partition doesn’t start with sector one
See error #105.


So, PartitionMagic may be erring out because of concerns that it might cause loss of data if it manipulates the disk incorrectly.  And, the WinXP installation disc also has the function of formatting and partitioning one's HDDs--so it to may be seeing that potential problem and refusing to boot also. 

Quote:
MS disk management says all partitions are healthy.

As I mentioned in one of the other threads mentioned above--WinXP itself is more *forgiving* and willing to *ignore* potential issues regarding partition errors--whereas DOS utility programs (and now apparently WinXP installation CDs) designed to work with partitions are much less forgiving!

The WinXP installation boot disc may be giving an erroneous error message.  It's common for programs to *see* an error state, but they then *analyze* the problem incorrectly, and report the closest error match--but it may have nothing to do with the actual problem!

Quote:
It  will not start from the XP installation disk- it says TXTSETUP.sif is missing or corrupt.

That file is a *setup information file*--i.e. *.sif* file.  It's located here on the installation CD:  X:\I386\TXTSETUP.SIF.  Where *X:* is your CD drive letter.  You can open that file with Notepad--I suspect you can do that in Windows, and you will find that the file is not corrupt or missing!

If you want to pursue this, let me know--there's about a dozen more questions to ask--but, I find folks get confused and fail to answer some of the questions if I ask them all at once!
 

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Richard K
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #7 - Jul 8th, 2009 at 5:04pm
 
Yes I would like to have some help.  I suspect you don't want any of my multitude of excuses for dropping the ball.

PartitionInfo gave me an interesting report.  I have tried to attach a Word document that contains the report.  The white box that I think should contain the Word file remains empty after I select the file in the file upload window so I don't know if it is there or not.

Partition C contains the OS, antivirus and things like that.
Partition E is where I keep programs and data.
Partition F contains my wife's pictures.  Photoshop opens these OK.
Partition G contains music.

The only possibility I can think of for damaging the MBR is having Diskeeper do a boot time defrag on the the first hard disk.  I haven't done anything else I know of- no progams, applications, ect.- that would affect the MBR.

Should I start with Dan Goodell's MBR saver?

Thanks,
Richard
 
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #8 - Jul 9th, 2009 at 12:18am
 
@
Richard K

Quote:
PartitionInfo gave me an interesting report.

That was going to be one of the next programs I was going to recommend running to see what the results were!

Here's the main results:

Quote:
Disk Geometry Information for Disk 1:  (for C:)

Error #106: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.

BeginSector expected to be 1, not 8.

***********************************************
(and for the extended partitions E:, F:, and G:)

Error #106: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.

BeginSector expected to be 1, not 2.



Quote:
Partition Information for Disk 1:

E:             NTFS 

Error #114: Logical starting at 48339655 is not one head away from EPBR


F:             NTFS       

Error #114: Logical starting at 85080304 is not one head away from EPBR

G:             NTFS

Error #114: Logical starting at 203864914 is not one head away from EPBR

So, it looks like the main problem is that the data on the partitions do not begin where they normally should!

Quote:
The only possibility I can think of for damaging the MBR is having Diskeeper do a boot time defrag on the the first hard disk.

You may be correct!  But, if it's true, then Diskeeper is *seriously* misbehaving relative to what the norm that is expected!  It could have something to do with some proprietary effort to improve disk performance.  (You might want to post a question to their support forum asking if their program is the likely source for these partition changes, the *errors* reported by PartitionMagic (PM), and the loss of being able to boot to your PM recovery floppy disks or installation CD disc--or to your WinXP Recovery Console!  If they were to admit to that being the case (which I doubt they would!), I'd let them know you are not very pleased with their very poor behavior!)

But, both Ghost and PM manipulate the *Partition Table* in the Master Boot Record (MBR)--so, possibly they are also potential sources of the issue.

Have you done any restores of Ghost images to your first HDD with your OS on it?

Have you used PartitionMagic to create or resize any of your partitions on that 1st HDD?

Quote:
Should I start with Dan Goodell's MBR saver?

Not yet.

Are you comfortable with removing the cover of your system's case? 

Do you know what the HDDs look like and what connector is the power cord and which is the communication connector to the HDDs?

Do you have the older Parallel IDE ATA HDDs (PATA), or the newer Serial ATA HDDs (SATA)?

Do you know which HDD is the one with the problems on it and your OS--and which one is your *other* HDD?

If not, then we will have to work on that first!  But, if your comfortable with the above questions, then proceed to the next step below.

The first thing to do is to disconnect the communication connector from the back of the primary HDD that is giving those errors in PM--i.e. the one with your OS on it.  (It's optional whether to disconnect the power cord or not to that HDD as well.)

Now, attempt to boot to the PM floppy recovery floppy disks, and to the PM CD installation disc--and also see if you can boot to the WinXP installation CD to the Recovery Console (may need your main Admin password to do this--do you know it?!)--do not attempt any changes to any of the HDDs--just determine if you can boot successfully to those various programs from the boot disks or discs.

Once you determine that you can or can not boot successfully using the various boot media--exit the  program, shut down your system, and reconnect the communication connector to that primary HDD and boot back to Windows.

Results?

 

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OH NOOOOO Progress Report: Only PM boot floppy will start
Reply #9 - Jul 12th, 2009 at 11:02am
 
NightOwl,
I disabled the first hard disk and got the following results.

WinXP install disk would not start.
INF File TXTSETUP.SIF missing  Status 32768

PM recovery CD would not start.
Device Driver not found MSCD001
You booted from a PowerQuest bootable CD
A:\  Drive is bootable portion of CD
Your can access some DOS and PowerQuest utilities from A:\ drive.
The main PowerQuest utilities are located in the Y:\ drive
1 Partition Magic
2 Boot Magic
3 DOS
Volume in A:\ drive is Pmagic-8
1:  invalid drive specified
     invalid directory specified
     Command or file name not recognized
This recovery CD used to start OK

PM recovery floppy did start

I hope this is useful information.

Thanks for your interest and help.
Richard
 
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #10 - Jul 12th, 2009 at 2:05pm
 
The last 1 Posts were moved here from PC Hardware + Software (except Cloning programs) by NightOwl.

@
 Richard K

We already have three threads (topics) that are possibly inter-related--let's keep further posts all together here so we don't have to jump around too much!

 

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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #11 - Jul 12th, 2009 at 3:16pm
 
@
Richard K

Hmmm...well, your last response was not what I had hoped for!

I was hoping that if the HDD with the PartitionMagic (PM) errors was eliminated, then all the boot issues would be resolved--but, obviously they were not.  So, the actual problem or problems may be several--rather than just one--so let's try to sort things out!

Quote:
I disabled the first hard disk

I want to make sure we're talking *apples/apples* and *oranges/oranges*--when you say *disabled*--do you mean *disconnected the communication cable* from it like I recommended in my post #8 above?

Quote:
WinXP install disk would not start

Again--to be accurate--the WinXP installation CD probably did *start*, but after loading a certain portion of the boot information--it stopped where it attempted to access that file--and gave that error message--is that correct?

Quote:
PM recovery CD would not start

It looks like the PM CD did *start*--but, gave you the following error(s) during boot:

Quote:
Device Driver not found MSCD001
You booted from a PowerQuest bootable CD
A:\  Drive is bootable portion of CD
Your can access some DOS and PowerQuest utilities from A:\ drive.
The main PowerQuest utilities are located in the Y:\ drive
1 Partition Magic
2 Boot Magic
3 DOS
Volume in A:\ drive is Pmagic-8
1:  invalid drive specified
     invalid directory specified
     Command or file name not recognized
This recovery CD used to start OK

Are the above *error messages* what were reported during the boot process?  It looks like several different error messages that should have occurred at different times during the boot process.  Where these reported all at once--or were they reported at different points during the boot sequence?

Quote:
PM recovery floppy did start

So, this means that the boot floppy was able to load DOS PartitionMagic, and no errors were reported during boot--and PM started without any errors?  And, were you able to see the HDD that was still hooked up and its partition layout?

Quote:
INF File TXTSETUP.SIF missing  Status 32768

I did a Google search on this error and did not find anything specific.  But the possible problems ranged from:

a.  Bad RAM
b.  Bad Optical Drive
c.  Scratched optical boot disc
d.  Bad HDD
e.  Booting from older (pre SP2 or SP3) WinXP CD after updating to newer SP2 or SP3 version of WinXP

So, we need to consider each of the above as possible problems--but, certain ones are less likely than others.

I looked back at your PartInfo Doc and it looks like you have two physical HDDs on your system.  Disconnect the communication cable from both HDDs, and again attempt to boot from the WinXP installation CD and the PM Installation CD.  Results?




 

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Richard K
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #12 - Jul 13th, 2009 at 10:01pm
 
NightOwl,
I have a long reply to your questions as I repeated the testing.  I will attach a Word doc containing my reply.

I can past the whole text into a forum reply if anyone wants.
Richard
 

MBR_Troubleshooting.doc (37 KB | 1057 )
 
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Richard K
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #13 - Jul 14th, 2009 at 8:08am
 
Looking back at my notes from last night I didn't include the result of  starting the PM  CD with both HDDs disconnected.

> I booted the computer with the PM CD and both hard disks disconnected.  This is the series of error messages.

•      Port 00 no device detected; port 01 CDROM, Plextor DVDR
•      Drive 00 not found.
        port 01 CDROM, Plextor DVDR
•      Press F1 to continue.
>Press F1
•      Device Driver not found MSCD001
•      No valid CDROM device driver selected.
•      Drive 0 not found
•      You booted from a PowerQuest bootable CD
•      A:\  Drive is bootable portion of CD
•      Your can access some DOS and PowerQuest utilities from A:\ drive.
The main PowerQuest utilities are located in the Y:\ drive
1 Partition Magic
2 Boot Magic
3 DOS
> I pressed 1 and got back A:\>
>I entered A::\> dir
The A directory contained
HIGHMEM.EXE
PTEDIT.EXE
MSCDEV.EXE
SMARTDRV.EXE
ATAPI_CD.SYS
TA1SATP.SYS
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
1  PM.BAT
2  BM.BAT
3  GETCH.EXE
System Files Exist
>I entered PM.BAT and got
Invalid drive specified
Invalid directory specified
Command or file name not recognized
A:\>

I hope I haven't gotten myself too confused with all the thingsI did last night.
Richard
 
 
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Re: Oh Nooooo! I can't get the MS recovery console to run.
Reply #14 - Jul 14th, 2009 at 11:39am
 
@
Richard K

Quote:
I hope I haven't gotten myself too confused with all the thingsI did last night.

Well, ... it is *confusing*--but, gradually we are getting more information to work with!

I did some boot testing--I have PartitionMagic (PM) 8.01--so, I booted that installation disc to see what happens to better understand the results you posted.  Well, my PM disc had a boot failure too!  I've never used that boot disc on this system--so was unaware that it wouldn't work properly!

My failure was for a completely different reason, but ends up giving essentially the same final result.  The PM installation disc uses *Caldera DR-DOS* for its OS.  And the command line that loads *mscdex.exe* that is responsible for assigning DOS drive letters to one's optical drives has a *switch* that is forcing the first optical drive seen in DOS to be given the drive letter *Y*.  Here's the command line:

Quote:
LoadHigh A:\mscdex.exe /d:mscd001 /v /l:y

But, I have 3 optical drives on this system!  So, for DOS to assign drive letters it attempts to assign *Y* to the first seen drive, *Z* to the next one--and that's the last possible drive in DOS--so it fails when trying to assign the final CD drive a drive letter.  When that happens, the *mscdex.exe* driver errors out saying *Insufficient Drive Letters Available* and assigns no drive letters to any drive!

Well, the PM boot files assumes that the optical drive is *Y*--so if you select that option #1 *1 Partition Magic*, it does not find that drive, and you get these errors:

Quote:
Invalid drive specified
Invalid directory specified
Command or file name not recognized
Command or file name not recognized

If the *Y* drive does not exist, you can't change to that drive, and if the drive does note exist, you can't find a directory on that non-existent drive, and if the directory doesn't exist, you can not find a file name in that non-existent directory to execute a load command for that file!

In your post above:

Quote:
> I booted the computer with the PM CD and both hard disks disconnected.  This is the series of error messages.

•      Port 00 no device detected; port 01 CDROM, Plextor DVDR
•      Drive 00 not found.
        port 01 CDROM, Plextor DVDR
•      Press F1 to continue.
>Press F1

•      Device Driver not found MSCD001
•      No valid CDROM device driver selected.
•      Drive 0 not found
•      You booted from a PowerQuest bootable CD
•      A:\  Drive is bootable portion of CD
•      Your can access some DOS and PowerQuest utilities from A:\ drive.
The main PowerQuest utilities are located in the Y:\ drive
1 Partition Magic
2 Boot Magic
3 DOS

The first series of errors appear to be coming from your BIOS because you have no HDDs hooked up.  The next two lines appear to be the problem with loading you optical drive:

Quote:
•      Device Driver not found MSCD001
•      No valid CDROM device driver selected.


For some reason, your optical drive is not being recognized!  But, you have said you have previously been able to boot successfully from your PM installation disc!  Has anything changed as far as your optical drive is concerned since the last time you were successful in booting your PM disc?  Did you replace the drive with a new one?  Did you move it from a previous location as far as what communication cable was connected to it?  Anything you can think of?

You mentioned that you have made my boot disk and it works fine:

Anybody Familiar with Partition Magic?--Reply #6

So, if you boot from that boot disc, you are able to put an optical disc with data on it in the optical drive and access the data by changing to the *X:* drive in DOS?  And you do not see any loading errors during boot?

I'd like to have you try this--leave both HDDs hooked up--when you boot from the PM installation disc--when it first begins to read the CD and says *Starting Caldera DR-DOS*--press the F8 key.  This will bring up the boot files in a trouble shooting mode that requires each command line to be loaded one at a time and you have to press *Y* (yes) to load the next line.  The boot file will load that line and stop until you tell it to load the next line--this gives you a chance to read the results and any error messages.

The PM uses a *Sony* optical driver plus the *mscdex.exe* driver for the optical drives--record and post any error messages.

Do the same for my boot disc--it should say *Loading Windows 98....*--the response to pressing F8 is a little different (this is using MS-DOS) and you have to select the option listed at the bottom for *step-by-step confirmation*--this time it will ask if you want to create a *log file* (or something to that effect)--say *N* to that one, and *Y* to all the others--any error messages?
 

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