Black Screen Blinking Cursor xp + More

[Compufix]

Hey guys,

I have a doozie on my hands here and need some assistance. I will try and explain the best I can..

I am working on a HP Pavilion 503n

The 40 gig HDD had 2 bad sectors on it and was freezing up. So I replaced it with a 80 Gig HDD and did a mirror with Acronis (I have also tried Ghost, but it always came up with IO errors)

But the mirror took without a hitch in Acronis, but now when I try and boot the machine I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.

If I put Hirens v15 in and select "boot windows xp (NTLDR) from hard drive the OS boots up with no issue's..

I have tried copying NTLDR from the i386 folder on a windows home cd along with NTDETECT.COM and still nothing..

putting the original HDD back in it boots up fine but like I said it freezes when you put the HDD under heavy load

The new 80 gig hdd if loaded though hiren's (boot windows xp NTLDR from hdd) works fine, doesn't freeze moves right long..

I have also checked the boot.ini and all is default and normal..
so .. ya
I know I'm missing something , but I have no idea what?

any help or suggestions would be great.. I'm at a lose

 

[red12049]

Hey guys,

I have a doozie on my hands here and need some assistance. I will try and explain the best I can..

I am working on a HP Pavilion 503n

The 40 gig HDD had 2 bad sectors on it and was freezing up. So I replaced it with a 80 Gig HDD and did a mirror with Acronis (I have also tried Ghost, but it always came up with IO errors)

But the mirror took without a hitch in Acronis, but now when I try and boot the machine I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.

If I put Hirens v15 in and select "boot windows xp (NTLDR) from hard drive the OS boots up with no issue's..

I have tried copying NTLDR from the i386 folder on a windows home cd along with NTDETECT.COM and still nothing..

putting the original HDD back in it boots up fine but like I said it freezes when you put the HDD under heavy load

The new 80 gig hdd if loaded though hiren's (boot windows xp NTLDR from hdd) works fine, doesn't freeze moves right long..

I have also checked the boot.ini and all is default and normal..
so .. ya
I know I'm missing something , but I have no idea what?

any help or suggestions would be great.. I'm at a lose

Fix boot, fixmbr, repair install (which may also help fix anything corrupt from the old drive), or the replacement is bad as well.

Rick

 

[NYJimbo]

Sounds like the drive doesnt know it's active. Hmm....

 

[Compufix]

Tried fix boot and fix mbr, no

When I try and boot from the windows cd, I get a blue screen stop error after windows xp does its thing with loading files..
The weird thing is when I boot from the xp cd it says the computer was already in the middle of an upgrade.. enter to continue or f10 to start a new install..

either option doesn't work.
enter tells me a windows installation isn't found and f11 gives me the stop error.

The New HDD is tested fine. Along with the RAM all tested good and working.
If I pop in hirens and go to partition magic home.. or one of those.. it shows the partition as active.

I should also mention that.. a reinstall is kinda out of the question, the customer does some sort of charity where they have a ton of old emails they don't want to lose in outlook Express..
I dunno if there is a way to save all that, or I would of done a reinstalled many days ago

 

[Martyn]

I should also mention that.. a reinstall is kinda out of the question, the customer does some sort of charity where they have a ton of old emails they don't want to lose in outlook Express..
I dunno if there is a way to save all that, or I would of done a reinstalled many days ago

Fabs or D7 but backup the image complete drive as well just in case.

 

[Compufix]

thank you for the D7 tip,
nice program
I did a backup and going to attempt to do a repair install..

but when i load from a windows xp home +sp1 DvD I get this error:

"Stop: c0000221 unknown hard error
\systemRoot\system32\ntdll.dll"

any ideas?

 

[Xander]

I should also mention that.. a reinstall is kinda out of the question, the customer does some sort of charity where they have a ton of old emails they don't want to lose in outlook Express..

Why should emails preclude a reinstall? Custom software, maybe. Email? Hell no.

I dunno if there is a way to save all that, or I would of done a reinstalled many days ago

If you don't know how to pull data off of a drive that's not booting, find someone who can (and apprentice with them).

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

when I try and boot the machine I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left.

I have tried copying NTLDR from the i386 folder on a windows home cd along with NTDETECT.COM and still nothing..

Are you sure? XP is pretty good about letting you know about every boot issue with the exception of missing ntdetect.com

The weird thing is when I boot from the xp cd it says the computer was already in the middle of an upgrade.. enter to continue or f10 to start a new install..

Oh wait I know the issue you are talking about now but I can't recall the fix.

 

[Compufix]

ty for the replay,
I know how to pull data off a HDD, I am however not sure how to backup old emails, addys I can do but old emails.. no

and.. like I have already stated, the customer does charity work through her e-mail and wants to "keep" all her old emails.

If you could tell he how to backup some 2000 + old emails though outlook then I will be most grateful.

I have already used D7 to backup, and I am trying a repair install.

 

[732914TECH]

if you have a windows 98 boot disk laying around use fdisk /mbr and it should fix it

 

[Compufix]

Are you sure? XP is pretty good about letting you know about every boot issue with the exception of missing ntdetect.com

unfortunately yes,
the old HDD has been mirrored with Acronis, and ever since the PC just sits there after being turned on with a black screen and a white blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

The only way i can get it to boot is if I stick Hirens boot cd in and select the option:
"Boot windows xp (NTLDR) from hard drive"

It boots right up and runs perfect

I have tried copying the NTDLR and NTdetect.com from a xp home cd,
I have gone int the recover console and did a mbr fix and boot fix
still all with the same results.

 

[Compufix]

if you have a windows 98 boot disk laying around use fdisk /mbr and it should fix it

I do and I shall try that

 

[Compufix]

if you have a windows 98 boot disk laying around use fdisk /mbr and it should fix it

I tried your suggestion and, still nothing.

mind you now after the repair install, I am getting a disk read error ctrl+alt+del to restart

now again .. if I put hirens boot v15 in and..use the boot xp NTLDR from Hard drive option .. boots right up...

so I have reinstalled xp, but am still in the same place I was...

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

ive been thinking about it, and I really got nothing unless acronis failed at something. which version of acronis were you using?