Well, after trashing my burner by installing FabDecrypter over Decrypter (my other thread - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/264482), I moved over to another system (Sony Vaio RS710GX) and installed FabDecrypter & VOBBlanker on it. One of them triggered a system restore point to be saved - I don't remember which, but it happened. I got all the way thru burning, but the disk still has errors, so I got fed up & went to bed. This morning, my gf woke me up (it was her Vaio) complaining it was locked up & now won't boot. Sure enough, it's *#^$%ed. It stops during POST asking about safe modes, last good configuration, or normal. But no matter what you choose, when it gets to the WinXPHome splash screen with the short progress bar, progress stops briefly in the middle, then a BSOD flashes too fast to read, then it goes directly back to POST & the same choice screen. I used the camcorder to read the BSOD, & it's stop error 0xED "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME", which MS says is due to either a low-speed IDE cable on a high-speed system, or a corrupted hard drive. But I didn't change any cables, the IDE should have always been running at double speed, and the error parameters don't match what MS says would be there for corrupt HD. Sony doesn't provide recovery disks (you're supposed to burn your own from your HD after you buy it), so that system is DEAD for now. Anyone have any idea what I've done now? More importantly: any idea how I can FIX it???
boot with an xp disc (from your other comp?) choose repair follow it thru at command prompt type chkdsk /r takes a while (hour or more sometimes) or use the fixboot facility
I have no XP install/boot discs. She didn't burn the ones for that computer when she bought it, my HP didn't include them (Sam's Club return), and my other 2 systems don't run XP. Do you think I could burn one from the HP? Sony's site says using the wrong repair disc will ruin the file structure &/or OS.
find a friend and borrow their xp disc you can't use a different computers repair disc cos it'll probably wipe out all her info. you just need to rebuild the boot sector and/or replace a few damaged files it needs an actual xp disc to do that
I ended up finding a REALLY good data recovery utility from another BBS, and it allowed me to see that there were no files worth saving on the crashed Maxtor. So I formatted it & reinstalled XP with the Sony DVD, and then retested the drive. It failed again, so Sony is sending a new HD to a local contractor who will come to the house & replace it. I specified NO Maxtor. Thanks to all who replied - your contributions were appreciated. BTW If anyone is interested, the utility is Data Rescue PC by ProSoft Engineering. You have to have a good computer running XP or 03 to burn the recovery CD, but that disc will work on almost any PC. Here's the link: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_pc_info.php Most of their software works on Macs.
