Keeps booting into recovery app (XP, Advent 4211c)

Random

I'm posting here rather than the laptops forum as it appears to be more of a boot issue than a laptop specific problem, I could be wrong though.

So there's an application on my laptop which allows me to burn a recovery DVD / USB in case of system failure etc. I loaded this up in Windows, followed through and rebooted laptop and it loaded up the application (in sort of a DOS environment but the mouse etc all worked).

I set it to create on my USB drive and left it over night. It was still going in the morning so I powered down the laptop by holding the power button in (there was no cancel button).

Everytime I load my laptop now it goes into this recovery thing (techguys recovery I think it is?) rather than loading XP. I have to hit F11 for the boot menu on boot and quickly (and I mean REALLY QUICKLY!) press up and enter on the XP on a boot menu which appears to show for a split second.

Any ideas how I can get rid of this annoying problem?

Thanks

DarrenMSP

I stopped using XP so long ago I'm not sure if this is exact, but try

Run > msconfig.exe and you should be able to see a boot option which will have XP and more than likely your recovery application.

Make XP first in boot (not sure if you can do this)
then remove the App from the list.

Again, I'm taking this from how I'd do it on Vista/7 so it might not be the same in XP

Random

This is what I have

in MSCONFIG


in My Computer Properties

DarrenMSP

Random wrote: »

This is what I have

Won't lie, I'm stumped... I was sure it would show up there.... Anyone else got any idea!?

MunsterCycling

Allow it complete the backup disc creation.

MC

Random

Tried it there again last night and it was still running this morning.

Random

this is driving me mad now at this stage. any suggestions? thanks

Kimbot

Can you boot from CD?
If so I would run XP Disk, go into the recovery option and do a "fixboot".

Random

the laptop doesn't have a dvd drive and the usb one isn't detected until i'm in windows so i can't boot from cd.

what does "fixboot" do? there might be a recovery option in the recovery app thing.

Kimbot

fixboot basically rewrites your boot sector. Numerous times when I can't boot into XP this has been my saviour.


http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixboot.mspx?mfr=true

Random

i'll have a try of that later on then, fingers crossed. thanks

Kimbot

No probs,

My understanding of what is going on is as follows:

When in XP and you chose the rocovery option I think it wrote temporarily to the boot to kick the software in, since the software hasn't finished it has not rewrote the boot options so until you do the "fixboot" it will keep booting into it.

Random

right so i just rebooted there and had a look but there's no recovery console option. the only real option i have is to reinstall or to burn a backup.

Fysh

Random wrote: »

the laptop doesn't have a dvd drive and the usb one isn't detected until i'm in windows so i can't boot from cd.

what does "fixboot" do? there might be a recovery option in the recovery app thing.

Most netbooks should let you boot from a USB drive in the absence of a built-in optical drive- have you tried changing the first boot drive in the BIOS?

(I'd agree with the theory that your bootloader is temporarily stuffed, which unfortunately means you need to boot from either a CD or a USB Drive configured to boot a copy of the Recovery Console).

Edited to add:

Random wrote: »

right so i just rebooted there and had a look but there's no recovery console option. the only real option i have is to reinstall or to burn a backup.

If you have the XP installation media and access to another Windows box, you can create a USB drive from which to boot into the recovery console. Alternatively, you can boot from the CD (assuming you have a USB CD drive) and follow these instructions to access it.

Random

just to clarify, i get a split second menu where i can bit the recovery program or xp and generally i can pick xp but it's a pain having to race the pc.

i'll look up setting a usb drive up with recovery console and try fixboot that way.

AlmightyCushion

Random wrote: »

just to clarify, i get a split second menu where i can bit the recovery program or xp and generally i can pick xp but it's a pain having to race the pc.

i'll look up setting a usb drive up with recovery console and try fixboot that way.

Is the recovery the first option? Is that the reason it keeps booting into the recovery all the time? e.g. if you manage to hit the xp option would it boot into windows fine?

If yes, then you could boot into windows and change the boot.ini file to have xp as the first option and maybe increase the time to a couple of seconds. I never don't mess with the boot.ini file much so I'd look into it a bit more if I was you.

Random

recovery is the second option and seems selected by default. i actually have to quick press the up arrow on the keyboard and hit enter to catch the xp option. if i manage this (which i've got quiet good at now with practice!) then it loads into windows fine.

i tried changing the boot options time to 30 seconds (assume this is the same as your boot.ini suggestion?) but this has no apparent effect.

AlmightyCushion

Random wrote: »

recovery is the second option and seems selected by default. i actually have to quick press the up arrow on the keyboard and hit enter to catch the xp option. if i manage this (which i've got quiet good at now with practice!) then it loads into windows fine.

i tried changing the boot options time to 30 seconds (assume this is the same as your boot.ini suggestion?) but this has no apparent effect.

Try using start > run. And typing msconfig. In there you have an option to edit the boot.ini file. It's the way I've always done it and it's worked for me.

Random

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Try using start > run. And typing msconfig. In there you have an option to edit the boot.ini file. It's the way I've always done it and it's worked for me.

i tried that previously (above) but here's what it looks like now. what do i change? thanks

xsiborg

Random I have the same netbook as yourself. The reason you can't seem to make any changes in xp is because the actual rescue partition is a hidden partition and the bootloader is a vista bootloader. I can make you a recovery USB stick if you need one which will get you going again if you like?

Random

would really appreciate the help xsiborg, but i'd rather understand the process and what's going on too. if you could talk me through it that would be even more welcomed.

thanks

xsiborg

well normally the recovery option should make you a recovery usb stick in about ten mins, it sounds like you had a corrupt recovery partition on your hard drive because normally the wizard will tell you if its the USB key is faulty.

in my own experience i've wiped all partitions off the drive, installed windows 7 rc100, then because i had to send the netbook back for them to put a bumper on it, i restored the laptop to its original condition. it not only put the windows xp partition back on, but also the recovery partition (basically restored it to factory condition!)

i think i read somewhere aswel before that having the wireless enabled while running the recovery program caused issues with making the usb recovery drive.

if you have important stuff on the HD i can send you a caddy to take out your HD and back up your stuff, then run the recovery program.

ps- have you tried running the recovery stick creator since then with the wireless and webcam disabled?

Random

the wireless and webcam are always disabled.

i can take the hdd out and i have an adapter to hook up to a pc but i'd really rather not go through the effort of copying all my stuff off and back on again.

xsiborg

Random it seems like that may be the only option available to you, unless you wanted to transfer your stuff to another computer over the network using a network cable, usually it takes me an hour to transfer 20GB, so even if you have a full 160GB HD, it'd take 8 hours. then do a re-install. that to me would just seem like the easier option, without opening the netbook.

xsiborg

got my netbook back just ten mins ago (nice turnaround time techguys), but basically what you're dealing with Random is a 5GB hidden recovery partition with all the restore data on it. This is also the partition on which the vista bootloader (MBR) is held.

that's what leads me to believe that your recovery partition is corrupted, hence a corrupted MBR (partition table). You wont be able to do anything about this in XP unfortunately so your only option left is a full destructive recovery (factory restore)

Random

Alright, thanks for the advice.

Another reason for not wanting to talk the HDD out is because I have Truecrypt installed and it might be a bit of a pain to get those files off without decrypting all and reencrypting but I'll need to look into it.

xsiborg

is this informaton any help to you?

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=removing-encryption

from what i read there, after you've mounted the encrypted volume, you could back up the data to an external HD (it decrypts on the fly!) and then delete the volume, and now after reading that piece, i wonder is that what's throwing off your MBR.

im going to try shrinking the xp partition on my advent and dual boot windows 7, then try making a USB repair stick. now i will keep the repair patrtition there so technically i'll be triple booting (remember i said the repair software uses a vista bootloader?), so i should end up with a triple boot menu:

1. Windows 7
2. Windows XP
3. Techguys Repair

also i remember playing around with this piece of software before:

http://www.intowindows.com/download-easybcd-for-windows-7/

that just came to my mind now, you might download it and see what options it throws up for you, all i think i remember doing with it was an xp/vista dual boot install and it made it easier to edit the boot.ini file. maybe see if you can bypass the techguys repair option and set it to boot xp, default duration 1 second, since i think 0 is infinite!


i've just read throught the truecrypt FAQ, its similar to bitlocker but a hell of a whole lot better, and it seems comes with its own bootloader, which could be the reason for your headaches. from the FAQ:

I use pre-boot authentication. Can I prevent a person (adversary) that is watching me start my computer from knowing that I use TrueCrypt?

Yes (as of TrueCrypt 6.1). To do so, boot the encrypted system, start TrueCrypt, select Settings > System Encryption, enable the option 'Do not show any texts in the pre-boot authentication screen' and click OK. Then, when you start the computer, no texts will be displayed by the TrueCrypt boot loader (not even when you enter the wrong password). The computer will appear to be "frozen" while you can type your password. It is, however, important to note that if the adversary can analyze the content of the hard drive, he can still find out that it contains the TrueCrypt boot loader.