Hi All,

My laptop has decided to die on me.

When I turn it on, it says something like :

"windows file ??????? has been deleted or is corrupt.
you can repair this by inserting an XP disc and pressing 'R' "

and this is just on a black screen.


( this happened after lending it to my friend for the weekend but he reckons he's done nothing, lol ).

Anyway, how do I find out which XP version I need?

It won't open in "safe mode" and there's nothing on the laptop to tell me whether it's "home" or "pro".

I'm not really bothered about the laptop to be honest as it's a 2000 model, very old and very slow with about 512MB of RAM.

All I want to do, is access it and get the photographs of my work off it so I can upload them to my website.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks and best regards,
Volly

You need The Dr

Would it be the NTDLR.dll thats corrupt ?

You could use a livecd to boot into, copy the files you want across to a usb stick or such, then format the laptop and do a fresh install of windows.

A fresh install is the best thing when you dont know why the problem happened.

You may not want to just try installing windows over the top of your existing install as if you have any files located in your 'My Documents' folder or other profile specific folder they may get deleted. Best to get the needed files off the laptop then try to fix it.

Well I'm not sure if the first poster is still online but if it's the ntdlr file that's failed then follow these steps and you'll be fine, if the file is in the system32 folder then it's a reinstall.

Windows XP users
1.Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.
2.When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.
3.Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the "R" key to repair Windows.
4.Log into your Windows installation by pressing the "1" key and pressing enter.
5.You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.
6.Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter, which in this case is "e." This letter may be different on your computer.

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\
7.Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.

It could be an ntldr or just as easily a Win32 file missing, both are fairly simple fixes.

If you need any help pm me and I'll go through what to do, if all you want are the photo's back and a fresh install then you could just use one of Hirens Ultimate Boot CD's or WinPe and run them from the CD Rom. Make sure you have a USB pen plugged in BEFORE you run the CD as it wont pick them up later, then just copy all the files and do a fresh install.

I personally like ERD (I think it's ERD50 for XP, ERD60 for Vista), you just make a bootable version and it has LOTS of little tricks for fixing dead machines and changing passwords when you've forgotten them etc.

sounds like he's formated your hard drive, or like one of the others said he may have deleted a file needed to run the system, so unfortunately you can only get it back by using the disc. I wont bore you with the details as someone has alredy given you the instructions. Unfortunately this is the only way you will fix it. If he has formated your drive you will have lost everything on your laptop aswell. Lets hope he hasn't x

It doesn't sound like he's formatted the drive, although it is possible, however even if he has I can (usually) still recover all the files for you quite easily.

If when you run any of the programs I mentioned before it shows the drive to be blank DON'T try and install Windows, even if you do I can STILL recover files, but the more you use the hard drive and the more you save to it the less there will be to recover.

Files aren't stored in one place there are bits of them all over the drive, so saving just one file could corrupt many pictures, or miss them altogether.

It sounds complicated, it's really not, but because of forum rules it's difficult to help you with the restrictions on what I can say or offer to do (even for free). If you're stuck just send me a pm.

Hey DR - that's the one!!!

Win32 file has either been deleted or is corrupt - that's what it says, lol.

Thanks for that.

Will PM you tonight when I get back in.

Cheers,
volly

oh thats good if he can retrieve them, I thought you could only do that if they had been deleted but if formated lost forever, so thats good news, Ill have to remember that one if i ever do it myself lol I'll have to keep you in my pm box, im always knackering my laptop lol xx