My computer is on the fritz! Can YOU save the day?

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SRB2-Playah

SRB2-Playah

Ne'er-Do-Anythin'
Once again, something has happened to my computer that is making me wish I was raised amish.

It started when I opened Steam. It was opening fine, until it gets to the part where it goes to the games menu and shows me the hottest new thing in the Steam online store that I will never buy. The games list has not loaded, and the news page is still white. I assume it's taking a long time to load. I click back to mIRC to check something. I am unable to click back to Steam.

Impatient, I try to right-click the Steam button in the taskbar, to try to close it. It does nothing.
I'm seeing the little "I'm busy" light on my computer. It is fullbright, not even flickering.
mIRC is still fully functional. There is no hint of any actual lag. I can't minimize mIRC, couldn't open the Start Menu, right-click ANYTHING, nothing except chat with my good friends.
So! After waiting several minutes, I do the only thing my impatiently thinking brain could conclude to doing. Cut the power, and restart.
I am unsure as to whether or not cutting the power played a part in what happened next.

It starts normally until the point where it shows the Windows logo and the psuedo-loading bar screen typical for Windows XP. This has been replaced with several seconds of blank, followed by:
Code: 
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
"c:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe"
Shit...

Digging up the boot disk for my dad's computer, I use the recovery console to try to fix things. However, my attempts are met with failures.

Firstly, I ran chkdsk, which told me that it doesn't think anything is wrong with my disk, but I force it to run anyway.
At 25%, it hits an error and stops. Can't remember the error right now...

My next attempt is to try to copy ntoskrnl.exe from the backup cache thingamabob. However, I am completely unable to access anything on my hard drive, even with the console.
Code: 
C:\>dir
 directory of C:\

an error occurred during directory enumeration
So... Yeah...

I run Windows XP Media Center Edition, SP3 if I'm not mistaken.
If anyone has an idea or solution to this problem, I would love to hear it.
If not, I would at least like to know of one or more methods of recovering files from the hard disk before I'm forced to reformat it. I have several things on there that I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to, yet.
All help will be sincerely appreciated.
 
Use a Linux Live CD to put a copy of the file back where it should be, no need to format.

Also, next time this happens, try Ctrl+Alt+Del and kill explorer.exe
 
Kaysakado, if Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't work, I'm pretty sure that Ctrl + Shift + Esc won't work either.

I really don't think you can simply put a file back on if the filesystem is broken. You would need to use a tool that can perform a deep hard drive check and fix the nodes in the filesystem, but this can take a very, very long time because it's scanning over every single cluster looking for low-level data rather than just relying on a bunch of nodes.

I think your best bet right now is to back-up anything if possible, and then reformat and reinstall. If that doesn't help, you might need to replace the drive.
 
FoxBlitzz said:
Kaysakado, if Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't work, I'm pretty sure that Ctrl + Shift + Esc won't work either.

I really don't think you can simply put a file back on if the filesystem is broken. You would need to use a tool that can perform a deep hard drive check and fix the nodes in the filesystem, but this can take a very, very long time because it's scanning over every single cluster looking for low-level data rather than just relying on a bunch of nodes.

I think your best bet right now is to back-up anything if possible, and then reformat and reinstall. If that doesn't help, you might need to replace the drive.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, it could just be a missing file and the enumeration error could be a coincidence.
 
Ah yes, this sounds like the error on my parents computer that made it crash about 4 years ago, the only thing being different was the fact that my cousin was playing a game on it.
The game started up fine and worked like normal, until 5 minutes later the game got a drop in framerate and started lagging. We closed the game and windows gave us a error that a system file was missing and the computer had to be shut-down. The computer was shutting down and crashed while it was doing so.
Needless to say, we bricked the freaking thing and it was 1 month before it finally got fixed.
 
SRB2-Playah said:
It was opening fine, until it gets to the part where it goes to the games menu and shows me the hottest new thing in the Steam online store that I will never buy.
Click to expand...
Proof Steam has AIDS.
 
I'm trying to use Knoppix, but all CDs I've burned it to thus far only give a DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER error, even on this not-broken computer.
I download the ISO, unzip it, and burn the contents to the CD. Am I doing it wrong?
 
SRB2-Playah said:
I download the ISO, unzip it, and burn the contents to the CD. Am I doing it wrong?
Click to expand...
Yep, that's why it's not bootable. :P Try using your CD-writing app to burn the ISO to a disc. (It should have an option to burn a bootable ISO) If it doesn't have that option, you might want to get something like ImgBurn.
 
Just so you know, if you can't get the linux live CD to wok, there's a small possibility that a faulty keyboard can cause it. I doubt it severely, though.
 
Wait, a keyboard can break an operating system? News to me. What's your source? LiveCDs are more likely to be foiled by things such as improper ISO burning (too fast), ACPI incompatibilities, and/or software issues on the LiveCD itself.
 
Nah, they can just make the operating system think it's broken. Though incredibly rare, a screwed up keyboard cable can apparently do so after a quick google search. While I know that is probably not the case nor accurate, I saw it mentioned on quite a few websites after searching that process. Almost every result on the first page mentioned it, so I thought that it is better safe than sorry and thus mentioned it here. Also, by your post, it seems as if you did not try to boot windows in safe mode. In my experience of viruses that do things like that, sometimes that lets windows XP boot. Press F8 like crazy before the windows loading bar comes, but after all that other crap shows up. Then select boot into safe mode. If that works, then try a virus scan. Though you probably already tried that.
 
Orangelink said:
Also, by your post, it seems as if you did not try to boot windows in safe mode. In my experience of viruses that do things like that, sometimes that lets windows XP boot.
Click to expand...
We did try to do Safe Mode. Same results.

Update: I got Knoppix to work.
Well, appearently, my System32 folder was corrupt.
It appeared empty, even when I had Show Hidden Files on.
I couldn't put anything in it neither. It just gave me a non-descriptive error when I did. I could screw with any other folder or file in WINDOWS, except System32.

So, I backed up everything I deemed worthwhile, and tried to reformat, and reinstall Windows.
I've been looking for an excuse to reformat, anyway... My computer's been slow for a long time, and I've been hoping that a reformat would help bring it back up to speed.
I haven't done it because we only have one installer disc at the moment (My Windows came pre-installed, ick), and I feared that the copy protection would prevent me from reinstalling Windows.
Now that I actually have no choice... Well, silver lining right there.

Except guess what? It failed to format properly. It errored about halfway through.

And now my hard drive is royally screwed up, complete with crown, scepter and jester.
It makes clicky noises when my computer is on. The Windows installer doesn't see it at all.

Later on, we're gonna take it out, try and see if we can get a good look at it. If there's nothing to be done (likely the case at this point), we're gonna yank out the hard drive of another computer we have lying around here.

Not a good day.
 
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