Darn Windows Sys. Restore!!!

I was having some minor problems so I used "System Restore" Win XP Pro. & it made the situation worse. I then decided to undo the restore & what a mistake!!! I cannot get into My operating system... cannot boot from the Windows CD or use Acronis <(which I have never used before) I cannot even boot into safe mode.
Does anyone have any idea how I can either get back into My system or how I can boot from the Windows XP CD to reformat & do a reinstall????
It's either that or another harddrive..... Thanks!

First, boot into the BIOS and check the boot order--make sure that the CD is first in the boot order (and once you fix your system, make sure that the CD is not bootable to prevent accidental boots with an infected CD).

Sorry, I have no information on how to recover the rest of your system... When I messed up an OS on my laptop, I purchased the latest version of Windows (XP 95 Home SP2 in my case), and just booted the CD and let it reintall the OS (at least this saved my data and most of my installed software).

Hated giving Mr. Gates my money--but it was the best I could do... Now, instead of Vista I would try Linux instead.

-Bill

If you do reformat you really should turn system restore off.

If you get a virus and manage to clean it and use system restore the virus will just re-appear because system restore will also backup the virus.

I never had a successful recovery with windows system restore. I suggest you get yourself one of those clone program like norton ghost. I clone my system when I have got everything in order.

My suggestion if you have important files in your system is this.
Ask your friend for a clone bootdisk. Clone drive C to an image file. Reinstall your windows. When you managed to bootup, you can retrieve these important files from the backup image (cloned).

Good luck. I hate it when this happened to me!

I had the same problem last night. It took all day to restore windows. I still have all my documents and programs, but I seem to have lost my bookmarks, favorites, and contacts *damn(*.

If you have a winxp disk you can reinstall windows. That's what I did.

What error message are you getting?

My computer is set to boot from the CD Rom but it will not as I inserted the Win XP disc to do a reinstallation of windows but it will not read My CD drive.When I get to the screen that asks if i want to boot normally...or safe mode etc..... I cannot do anything as when I hit enter the computer does nothing. The computer worked fine until the system restore & I know that I do not have a virus. The problem is how to get the Win. CD to boot from the CD Rom?

How old is your system? Some of the old mother board does not boot well on cd rom. Also, how many CD ROM you have got?

If you were able to boot from CDROM before and not now, I am afraid there is something wrong with your hardware. Open it up and make sure the cable is not lose.

System Restore. heh what a joke. As a tech and from experience we turn it off and dont use it. If it fails then your system is rendered useless. I would take your HD out and put it into another machine, copy over all your files you want saved.

Then re-install windows. it might work ok like that and keep your files like greelight did, but frankly I'd just reformt and start over, then copy your files back over.

If you have a back up image made somewhere (not sure what you got setup with acronis) then try that too.

I tend to think that Sys. restore corrupted the hard drive so bad that it is now useless as I did a system install from the CD & booted from the CD rom with no problems. i have a CD drive & a burner. I did pull & reinsert all the plugs..memory...etc. The hardrive is an 80 gig IDE so I think I will be looking for a like size or larger. Time to get rid of my BC-900 (maybe a partial trade etc??

a bootable OS CD like Knoppix or BartPE is helpfull with an external USB harddrive in a case like this. Boot to the CD, copy your files off the HD to the external one, then re-install windows.

Yeah stay away from system restore!!

Issac... yes..This was the first & last time I will use crappy system restore!
I will just get another hard drive. If anyone has an EIDE 80 gig or larger they want to get rid of,maybe we can work a trade or cash for the drive. I have a BC-900 & some Pro-Gold pens if interested :help:

Windows can't corrupt a drive to the point it needs replaced, you can always delete the partition and start over. Or as another said download a linux live cd and boot from it and wipe the system (or recover your data)

I was a Windows user since the 3.0 version. Last month, after to get tired of all Win crashes and all headaches I had cuz of it, I started to use Linux and I'm very impressed. Now I definitively can say that I'm a very happy Linux user.

In your case, I would do IsaacHayes's suggestion. I hope you can restore your system without lose anything important.

A hug!

WHAT? You guys think Sytem Restore is crap? I'm an IT pro and have used System Restore *countless* times on different users PCs often with great success. I've saved myself from numerous reinstalls on PCs with viruses or adware on them and reverted them back to a working condition. Often it is not enough to kill a virus completely, but it certainly helps getting things up and running again. Of all the times iv'e used it, not once has it made the sutuation worse and certainly not rendered the pc useless. I'm really surprised to read about your experience. I guess YMMV :shrug:

Jan

I doubt system restore works when registry has been damaged.

I downloaded BartPE but i'll be if I can find out how to burn it to CD. I ran it with My operating system CD it went through the process but after that I am confused on how to get it on the blank CD???
Tomorrow I am going to pull the harddrive out & put it into another pc & see if i have better results.This one has really got Me puzzled as the computer ran fine until I ran the system restore because I wanted to rescue some files deleted by mistake & all hell broke out.
Like I said...The computer does not even read my disc drive & will not boot from CD because of this.

JanCPF, perhaps it has worked for you, and I'm glad. But every single time I've seen it used, it just hangs in the middle, come back the next day and the screen is showing garbage or its still froze. I had to help a lady not too long ago with her brand new Dell XPS when a tech support guy from Dell told her over the phone to use system restore because she couldn't connect to the internet and that would solve it. She had the system for 2 weeks and hadn't really even used it much yet. Well she did that and the windows was trashed and she couldn't boot or anything. The tech said it would cost her and that they'd have to send someone out to fix it then. So I came over and fixed it for her, I had to re-install windows and everything. The reason her internet was down was because her ISP was having problems. Ugh... talk about bad advice from dell tech support!!!!

Freeze, have you gone into your BIOS and made the CD drive the 1st device to boot from, with HD 2nd? Windows and a harddrive has nothing to do with your pc booting to cd rom..

IsaacHayes said:

Freeze, have you gone into your BIOS and made the CD drive the 1st device to boot from, with HD 2nd? Windows and a harddrive has nothing to do with your pc booting to cd rom..

Click to expand...

Yes...I went into My bios & checked the boot order & cd is 1 & hd is 2...thats what has me puzzled. i have never had a problem like this one & like I said the computer worked before the sys. restore fiasco.If I can get it resolved I will install ubuntu as I received the cd last week.The computer will not even recognize the cd drive as being there. I redid all cables etc. but no luck. It all went downhill after sys. restore
By the way...it's a Dell Optiplex GX400 that i received from the White house :thanks: (yes) 2 of them without harddrives Of course.

IsaacHayes:

I've tried this with no success on one of my machines. I'm an avid Linux user, but I've never been able to mount a corrupted hard drive from a bootable Linux CD. Can you provide detailed info on how it's done, ie, the commands you used, how you tranferred the files, etc. Thanks...

IsaacHayes said:

a bootable OS CD like Knoppix or BartPE is helpfull with an external USB harddrive in a case like this. Boot to the CD, copy your files off the HD to the external one, then re-install windows.

Yeah stay away from system restore!!

Click to expand...

It is possible for a virus to write to the flash ROM on a hard disk although very unusual. I used to know of virii that would also write to a motherboard BIOS. Are you sure you are not dealing with a virus? Unless you are very familiar with the workings of them and have several different anti-virus programs running you might want to look at that possibility. If that is not the case then it sounds like a coincidence of hardware failure following a system restore attempt. Maybe the hard drive was on it's way to the grave yard - which caused the first problem and then restoring pushed it over the edge. If both the hard drive and CD Rom are on the same channel (same cable ) and the hard drive has a hardware problem this could also keep the CD Rom from booting. Try pulling the hard drive, change the BIOS to see only the CD and then try booting from it. If that fails than you either have a bad hard drive controller or your CD has also failed which would indicate a possible voltage spike has done some damage or even the power supply is failing.