First of all hello to you all its been a long while since my last post here but im back coz i know only good things come from this site Ok so let me try and explain the problem and thing i have tried in the best way i can but please, please forgive my wording and bear with me. Ok so the situation at present is i have an Eee pc Notebook that im fixing for a family member. The problem at first was missing drivers but after doing some reinstalling of the drivers and uninstalling of spyware i am now faced with MISSING\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM???? I worked on many systems and have never been faced with this problem after a simple restart of the system. Anyways.. I made a XP SP3 bootable usb with wintoflash and thats all fine as i can boot from it no probs but whilst following a TUT on youtube to fix the problem i was instucted to delete the Config\system file (wich i did) before realizing that system restore was not turned on and i had no restore points to go back to. **** right? Ok so i tried also repairing the instalation of windows but it does not recognize a windows instalation and instaed only gives me options to install not repair Great!!! My next step was to install a fresh copy of XP on to partition D as the HDD was split already and i though this the best way to access the information that needs saving on Partition C. I then format the partition (quick NTFS) setup then copies the files and gets to the point where i need to restart but then i cannot figure out how to continue the installation. I treid the XP USB step thats says "Cntinue With GUI Mode Setup Windows xp + start Xp From HD 2" but recieve this message.... Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. If i remove the Usb Drive and try to boot into windows i get the boot menu Showing OLD XP home and the new XP PRO installation is listed but when i select one i get the exact same messages as above so i am now stuck in a loop and have been going round an around for hours now. Please please someone help me. I know i can install a new version of Xp on the C partition but i dont want to lose al the data as i have been asked not to. I feel so bad at the moment as although it was not my fault that this happend i cant help but feel resposible as the computer booted when i got it and wont now and thats all my sister is going to think if i cant correct what has happend. So to wrap up this long post (sorry) I need the data of of Partition C one way or another or to be able to continue with the install on partition D and then i would hopefully be able to access the data needed. Once again sorry for the lenghty post but i feel i needed to include as much info as i could and if anymore is needed please ask. Thanks to anyone in advance who can help and even if you cant please share any theories you may have. Nick I have now got this sorted and not that anyone is interested but i used a LIVEUSB drive with BartPE on it to get to the files i needed.
is it possible to pull out the hard drive and rip the data you need on another box or laptop? got an extra drive around to install a temp win on the eepc? OR, i have had bad luck with trying to do this BUT the theory is sound. checnge the drive letters from C to D and from D to C. i feel like a tool even bringing it up because i eliminated an hp recovery partition trying to do that. But, whoever said information is dangerous is a bigger, less useful tool. the main problem i see is that as soon as the drive letters are changed windows will most likely go haywire, and not know WHAT to do. i think i have successfully negated any advice i have given.
Thanks for your reply mate but its all sorted now. This forum used to be pretty fast for replies but i see its slowed down somewhat. Anyway the way i got round my problem in case the info is useful for someone else is that i created a bootable USB drive and installed BartPE on it. I was then able to boot the BartPE OP and grab the files needed. The HDD was buried inside the Notebook and i did not want to dismantle it if it could've been helped. Thanks
