Slave... Safe Mode... Help?!!

J

Jathys

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Was trying to install Service Pack 2 for XP for a friend (yes, they already had SP1 installed). I made sure to make a restore point before doing SP2, but the restore point got erased by the SP2 installation?!

Anyway, once the SP2 installation was done, the system could only boot into Safe Mode (without network support). If a regular boot was attempted (or safe mode with networking), it'd come up with an error regarding ntdll.dll.

I tried doing a system restore . . . I restored as far back as the system could, but the installation had removed all previous restore points. Even though over 4gb is allowed for restore points, there were only 10 or so.... The furthest one back still gave the error on boot up regarding ntdll.

Genius me... I went back into Safe Mode and did the following:
-Copy ntdll.dll from the I386 folder (the SP1 version of the file)
-Rename the system32 version of ntdll.dll to ntdll.dll.old
-Paste the "new" ntdll.dll into the system 32 folder

After doing this, the system *won't even get into Safe Mode*?!! It keeps telling me that Procedure1 Initialization failed.

Why I am posting this:
There is no XP boot disk or recovery disk. I took the harddrive out of the machine and placed it in a Win95 machine as a slave. The bios *does* detect the harddrive correctly on start up, but I can't seem to find it anywhere . . . Neither DOS nor Windows can see the slave drive (ie- there's no letter for the drive).

Does anyone know:
a) Why I can't see the files on the slave drive (let alone the drive itself)?
b) Any other ways to fix the problem with the XP harddrive?

*Note*- The reason I'm trying to turn the XP drive into a slave is so that I can access the files and undo the name change to ntdll.
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> Why I am posting this:
> There is no XP boot disk or recovery disk. I took the
> harddrive out of the machine and placed it in a Win95
> machine as a slave.

I'm betting that the XP drive is formatted NTFS...which Windows 95 can't recognize. That is why you can't see the drive from within Win95.
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Can't do it with windows 95. The XP disk has NTFS file system on it.

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> I'm betting that the XP drive is formatted NTFS...which
> Windows 95 can't recognize. That is why you can't see the
> drive from within Win95.
>
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damn NTFS

That would explain why it still doesn't work in this WinME machine (FAT32).

I see a few programs to allow a DOS program to *read* from a NTFS partition . . . None so far to *write* to one.

I'm guessing I'm going to need to find another WinXP machine to use if the slave/master method will work.
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Re: damn NTFS

> I'm guessing I'm going to need to find another WinXP machine
> to use if the slave/master method will work.

Not necessarily. NTFS-DOS can read/write to NTFS partitions.

We use a program at work called ERD Commander that can also read/write to NTFS.

Both of these programs aren't free (NTFS-DOS does have a read-only free version) but they are widely available on teh intranets.

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Run a repair install. Since you don't have the disc, download an ISO (just stock. You don't need a cracked version or anything since your friend should have a legal CD-Key already) of the windows install disc with SP2 already applied to it and boot from it. Tell it to do a repair install and the system should be back to normal. In the future, ALWAYS make sure you have the install media for an OS before appling the latest patches service packs. Things can (and do) go wrong, and a repair install is often the best way to dig yourself out of such a hole.
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3 questions

> Since you don't have the disc, download an ISO (just
> stock. You don't need a cracked version or anything since
> your friend should have a legal CD-Key already)

Their machine came from Dell with XP installed already. What are the chances the CD key would be lost in doing this? I'd hate to have the system accidentally become recognized as non-legitimate.

> Tell it to do a repair install

<n00b>Where's that option? I don't seem to remember that on my machine anywhere (and mine is SP2).</n00b>

> Things can (and do) go wrong

Hahaha... Tell me about it. I miss safe mode.

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Re: 3 questions

> Their machine came from Dell with XP installed already.
> What are the chances the CD key would be lost in doing this?
> I'd hate to have the system accidentally become recognized
> as non-legitimate.

Bieng a Dell, there is a high chance it has a restore partition, unless you removed it.

> > Tell it to do a repair install
> Where's that option? I don't seem to remember that on my
> machine anywhere (and mine is SP2).

Boot from the CD. One of the options is repairing a current installation.
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Re: 3 questions

If it's a Dell, the existing CD-Key is on a sticker on the side or bottom of the machine. You will be able to do a repair install using this CD-Key. You may need to call Microsoft during the reactivation if it doesn't accept the key, but simply tell them you had to do a repair install and they will validate the key for you.
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> Run a repair install. Since you don't have the disc,
> download an ISO (just stock. You don't need a cracked
> version or anything since your friend should have a legal
> CD-Key already) of the windows install disc with SP2 already

The floppies failed. Trying to get an ISO, but little luck so far. Just installed BitTorrent and found a download. 534MB file . . . 12,000MB free on this harddrive . . . The program is telling me that there's not enough free space on the disk to do the download? Anyone know about this?
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What BitTorrent client are you using? If you're not using uTorrent, you should be.
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> The floppies failed. Trying to get an ISO, but little luck
> so far. Just installed BitTorrent and found a download.
> 534MB file . . . 12,000MB free on this harddrive . . . The
> program is telling me that there's not enough free space on
> the disk to do the download? Anyone know about this?

if its win95, doesnt it have issues with files over a certain size? i know linux has a program called captive NTFS, and i remember there being a program that 98 could use, but i dont remember the name. used a similar concept too.
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> The floppies failed. Trying to get an ISO, but little luck
> so far. Just installed BitTorrent and found a download.
> 534MB file . . . 12,000MB free on this harddrive . . . The
> program is telling me that there's not enough free space on
> the disk to do the download? Anyone know about this?

What letter is the main drive mounted on? Some things are picky and stupid, and try to use C: automatically. For a quick, but temporary fix for that problem, use "subst" in the command prompt, and use it to make a virtual drive of C:

Just to make it easier, for example, you'd use "subst C: D:/". The "D:/" is the drive you want to mirrior. If that fixes your problem, and you want to make it permanent, try changing the drive letter with the disk management tool.

Just a suggestion, because the same thing happened to me, and it worked, so...

Hope you can get it working.

Edit: Can't guarentee anything on a Win95 machine...

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