Jump to content

T_Beermonster

Members
  • Posts

    7
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

0 Neutral
  1. As hazelnut says try running chkdsk from your windows disk. This seems pretty definitely a windows problem rather than a defraggler problem so maybe one of the many Microsoft/Windows support forums could be more useful. Just for clarity did you actually try running partedmagic or systemrescuecd? Or have you only been using the windows XP disk?
  2. If the HD cant be seen then we have a paradox. The HD is clearly readable at least as far as loading the NT kernel. If the HD isn't detected by one of the live CD's I have suggested then it is either broken or of an exotic type. Gparted shows no HDs at all? If the HD is broken you wouldn't get as far as NT Loader you'd just get a message from the BIOS indicating that no bootable media were found (or something to that effect). If the HD is some strange software raid type of confection then the Boot process may fail while loading the drivers if they were changed by the update - but HD controllers are usually boot rather than system drivers and laptops aren't usually using RAID. If you have your windows XP disk (which you probably don't since manufacturers seem to think it is clever to send out computers with a hidden "recovery" partition which is about as much use as keeping the emergency safe key inside the safe) or have access to somebody else's XP disk it may be time to consider using it to get the recovery console up and check the disk for errors if it can be seen or roll back to one of your existing system restore points (if you have them) just on the off-chance that Windows XP has the right driver for your configuration and none of the Linux based disks do. If the disk cant be seen by either the windows XP disk or one of the Linux disks then it would suggest the problem is either the HD or the Mother Board - but if that were the case you wouldn't get as far into the boot process as you do.
  3. OK then we have a few new bits of information. 1. There was a windows update in progress. Was it just downloading or actually applying the update? Things can go horribly wrong if you are combining low disk space with a half applied windows update (and corresponding system restore point creation). 2. You have a mechanism to see the blue screen. If you can read the STOP error code it may (or may not) be in the Microsoft knowledge base with known fixes. You say you "tried to boot from a CD but it does not respond". Do you mean that the boot process carried on as if the CD weren't there - in which case you need to enable CD booting or assign CD priority over HD in the BIOS. Usually the bios can be entered by pressing the delete key soon after power up but laptops sometimes use F1 or some other key, a message should briefly flash up on power-on. Or do you mean the CD live environment booted but the HD could not be seen?
  4. Well we know a few things: 1. NT loader runs. 2. NT kernel and the hardware abstraction layer are present (though not necessarily correct) as their absence gives an unambiguous error. Does the windows boot animation begin to play before the crash? If it does then we know the boot process gets as far as reading the registry. If it doesn't we know the boot process is failing on either the kernel debugger or the boot animation itself. If you have not done so please try booting with a live CD. Check whether there exists a pagefile.sys file on the root of your windows drive, it should be a big file at least equal to the amount of ram you have in your machine. If there is not then windows may be failing when it tries to create a pagefile and does not have enough space. Clear some space and see what happens. If a pagefile.sys does exist then it should be safe to delete it - windows uses the pagefile to hold any memory dump from a crash, on restart the memory dump is taken from the pagefile and written to a logfile before freeing the space on the pagefile. If you have limited free storage space the memory dump may be too large to be written. Deleting pagefile.sys should simply cause a new pagefile to be created on boot and no attempt to record the now lost memory dump.
  5. Do you get a bluescreen or do you have windows set to auto-restart on crash? (for reasons I cannot understand this seems to be the default setting and its just plain stupid since people don't find out until there is a problem and if you cant get safe mode to work you cant turn the autorestart off and you can never see the error code) Given that none of the safe mode or roll-back options work you probably cant do much to change that behaviour so that you can see the STOP error code. Just to be sure though - all of the safe mode options will not work? - including command prompt? If you have made no other changes to your computer and the only prior warnings you have had is that your C: drive was almost full (what are we talking about here, 5GB free or 1MB?) then its probably worth checking if the drive is so full XP cant boot. The easiest way I can think to do this, if you have a CD drive on your laptop is to grab a Live CD and see if you can mount the drive and check the free space. Any live CD will do, but for a small download and some useful HD management tools I'd suggest Parted Magic or a slightly larger download with more tools but less hand holding System Rescue CD To start with all you want to do is see if the drive can be found, mounted and has any free space on it. In Parted Magic this can be done by clicking on Partition Editor and looking at the information provided. If the disk is indeed full then you may want to delete some junk or move some files on to a USB drive or similar. If you insert an external drive then it should be mounted automagically. To open your C: drive and select the files you want to delete/move click on "My Documents" and click on "media" (note these are single clicks not double clicks) your C: drive will be listed as sda1 unless you have other drives and partitions (it could be hda1 if you have a very old IDE drive and controller). Hopefully this is of some help and the problem is simply a full drive. If this is no help then I'll see what else I (or anyone else) can suggest with whatever further information you can gather.
  6. I still use batch files a fair bit, probably because: a ) I learned to use computers with DOS and never got out of some of the habits. b ) I use linux a lot and shell scripts are common. So yeah kmiller has given what is probably the easiest way to write a batch file in windows. You could if you wanted just save it as a .txt and then change the extension to .bat and click OK when it warns you the file may become unusable. Or you could do it the old fashioned way: Open a command line (run "cmd" or navigate around the startbar, your choice). Navigate to your Desktop folder (or any other folder you want to put the batch file in). You will usually start out in your home directory "C:\Documents and Settings\Yourusername" so to get to your desktop is a simple "cd desktop" Now you want to start working on your defrag batchfile so "edit dfrgshtd.bat" (I have chosen to call it dfrgshtd.bat - you can pick whatever you want as long as the extension is .bat) Nice eh? Lovely blue background dos text editor. Type in (or paste) the instructions: "C:\Program Files\Defraggler\df.exe" C: && shutdown -s -t 1 Then save (Alt-F, S) and exit (Alt-F, X) You can run the batch file by double clicking in windows or by typing it into the command line, you can even use the task scheduler of your choice to run it. I will give a short description of what the batch file does and how you may wish to change it: "C:\Program Files\Defraggler\df.exe" C: this runs the command line version of defraggler "df.exe" and tells it to defrag drive C: you can read more about df.exe and the switches that can be passed to it in the defraggler documentation. && this is an instruction to run the following command (shutdown) on successful completion of the preceding one (df). shutdown -s -t 1 this runs the shutdown.exe program with the instruction to shutdown (-s) and to wait one second before doing so (-t 1) I have made some choices here that you may wish to vary: 1. I am displaying the progress of the defrag, this is because I like to check how it is getting along if I'm passing, it also means that if defraggler bails out with an error message I can see it. If you do not wish to have the output displayed then insert a new line at the top of the batch file script and enter: @echo off on that line. 2. I am only shutting down the computer on successful completion of the defrag. If there's an error I don't want to shut-down. If you do want to shut-down even if it fails then you can replace the double ampersand (&&) with a single ampersand(&). 3. I am using a one second countdown before shutting down, this is because if I happen to be at the computer when the defrag finishes I'd like a chance to stop the shut-down. If you'd like more time give yourself more time, if you wouldn't then give a countdown of 0. If you don't specify a countdown the default is 30s. 4. I am actually shutting the computer down because I care about the planet and this is a home machine. You can instead of giving shutdown the -s switch use -r to restart the computer, -l to log off the current user. Feel free to read around and adjust the script to your hearts content, pipe the output of df to a log file if you want, make it display animated asciiart as you wait, whatever, have fun!
  7. I was just reading through these forums and have noticed quite a few people wanting to run an unattended defrag and have their computer shut-down on successful completion. I have a batch file on my desktop that I use to do this on my Windows XP box: "C:\Program Files\Defraggler\df.exe" C: && shutdown -s -t 1 Obviously you may need to edit this to suit the location you have defraggler installed, which drive(s) you want to defrag and how long a delay you'd like between a successful defrag and the shut-down signal. I believe that in vista shutdown.exe is present but the switch has changed from "-" to "/" (so "shutdown /s" instead of "shutdown -s") but you can check that yourself since I don't have Vista.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.