Windows screws up....

My windows partition got to the point of uselessness. It was not a virus/spyware/adware/hardware problem. I suspect it to be a Windows software error, I could not install anything, and a few other weird problems. I went to do a repair install by booting off the windows cd, and everything works fine until i get to teh part when it want to actually install. It just does nothing. The time remaining never changes, and the Hard Drive is silent and not doign anything, along with the CD-Drive. Any body have any experience with repair installs, or any ideas why windows won't repair itself (other than it being retarded)?

I really don't want to do a clear install...but it may come to that.

Format!

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

If you want to take a chance, you could do this:

Delete the Partion(s)
Format (Through Windows install. Just turn the computer off when it's done.)

If you didn't write too much data you can use a program like TestDisk to recover the old Windows partition.

If that doesn't work.

You can delete the partition, install Windows. Then take the drive to another installation of Windows somewhere (or some other OS that has this) use a Virtual Partition program. It'll allow you to Grab all the data.

You were on the IRC channel earlier, and you mentioned you had Linux on there too. As far as I know you'll have to whipe it all, since Windows is anal about partitions. (You have to install Linux after you install Windows)

I just had a problem of a fragmented MFT ... s**tty situation. At the time, I didn't know about some of the 3rd party boot defrag programs.

But you could also have a corrupted registry. That should be recoverable with some of the types of tools I've mentioned.

But, yeah, formating, then recovering might be the best option ...

Try backing everything up when you get it all back up and running onto a DVD or something like that.

[Edit]
I should mention, you can check all of these things ... shouldn't have done all the reinstall stuff yet though.

Anyway, slap the drive in another bootable computer, goto the drive and then defrag, do an analasys and view the report, check out the Fragmentation of the MFT. (There will be some, but there shouldn't be too many)

That could be one problem.

You can get that program I mentioned, TestDisk (it's free just search google for it)

Make a boot disk (A drive -> Format, check "MS-DOS Boot Disk) Then copy over the testdisk.exe to the floppy. Restart and run it.

Analyse the drive (Find some documentation online)
You're basically looking to see if the MBR is the same as the MBR backup.

I can't remember a program to check for partition table corruption ... but you can check with a hex editor ...

There's also the possibility of Registry Corruption ... and I don't remember how to check for that.

But that's what Google is for.

Oh yeah. This site might help: http://ntfs.com/

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Could you boot in Linux to recover the data?

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

yeah, wilson! knoppix!

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

If you have multiple partitions you could try using the recovery
console to move any needed data over to the non-system partition. Then
just reinstall Windows on the first one.

You could also do the same with a 2nd temp harddrive, or inversely one that you could boot from.