Hello,

I have spent 2 days trying to find the answer to my problem and nothing works. I dont understand what is wrong and could truly use the help of this forum please.

The problem: I tried to clean up some room on my HD and deleted some files and etc. Then I figured it was time to do a diskDefrag because it has been a long time since. The Diskdefrag finished with no problems at all and windows was working just fine. I then shutdown the laptop and the next morning when I tried to start it, is when I had the bad luck.

When I power on the laptop, it goes thru all the steps, except after the black screen with the windows logo comes on with the stats bar, it goes away and the blue screen of death comes on with the following:

** stop: C000021a {Fatal System Error} The windows Logon Process System process terminated unexpectedly with status 0xc0000135

The system has been shut down **

I have tried every option the F8 Menu...from safe mode, safe mode with networking, to Last Know Configuration...and nothing freaking works....THEN I booting off a copied Windows XP Pro CD, and clicked 'ENTER' (Which all the forums say to choose that option) BUT when I did that the next screen said the following:

** Setup did not find any Hard disk drives installed in your computer. Setup cannot continue. To quit setup press F3 **


PLEASE...Someone help me to fix this. I'm running WinXP Pro and its a tablet laptop. In the past I would have no problem just losing everything and starting over, however there is alot of very important files on it, that I need because my son is handicapped and currently have a case with the Ins company about getting approval for equipment.

Please any ideas on what I could do would be very much appreicated. Keep in mind when explaining what to do that I'm not a pro and might not know how to do certain tasks.


Just to be clear...I cant get into windows at all. When I power on, it goes thru the steps but then stops and gives me the BSOD. I tried running the Winxp pro cd, and have only done the first option 'To setup Windows 2000/XP now, press ENTER'. I have NOT tried the other option 'using Recovery Console, press R' because I was told that this will erase ALL files.


Sorry for writing so much, it just that this Ins case is very important to my son and I'm very nervous that I might have screwed things up. I'm willing to try anything, please just let me know what to do. Thanks in advance for any help.

John Silko

Recommended Answers

All 37 Replies

Recovery console will not erase any files unless you tell it to.
That said, I'm not sure there is anything in Recovery console that will help, as you indicate the HD cannot be found.
There are some very convoluted techniques to run System Repair from recovery console, but I'm not sure I'd try that:
http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1167895,00.html
What you can do is:
Remove the HD from the laptop.
Get a USB adapter and connect this HD to another computer to copy the relevant files.
Replace the HD and reinstall Windows.
I believe you were overzealous in your file deletion, and removed some files necessary to boot the computer.

Hello,

First thank you for taking the time to help out. As for the deleting of files...I know better then to delete files that are needed for windows. The only files I deleted are ones used for a program called ''Newsbin pro"...and even after deleting them I restarted windows and it started just fine....it was only after I did a diskDefrag and restarted windows, did I have this problem.

Do you know why it might be saying that it cannot find my HD when I try to boot off the XP Pro disk? Please if you can think of any ideas that I can try to fix this problem. As mentioned I have a laptop and dont know how it would be able to connect to my regular PC.


Please any ideas I would try...anything....just let me know what I should try.


John

There are several possibilities for the cause, but the solution seems pretty straightforward if the files are critically important.
There are several ways to access a disk without an operating system, and in my experience and your situation, I would remove the disk and attach it to another machine as described above..
A device like this one is all you need:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2477926&Sku=V13-1113
Most laptops HDs are easy to remove, but give us your model number if you need help with this.

Hello again,

I want to really thank everyone for taking out the time and trying to help. It means alot to my son and I.

The laptop I have is a Gateway Tablet CX2610. Running WinXP Pro and its about 2 to 3 years old. Please if anyone can try and help me to get it started...I just dont know what to do. I dont understand why, when I try to use the windows XP CD...and I choose either the 'Windows install' OR 'Recovery console Press R'...the next screen says...'Setup did not find any Hard disk drives installed in your computer. Setup cannot continue. To quit setup press F3'

I dont understand why its saying that it cannot find any HD installed...I dont understand whats going on. Please if anyone can help me to try and fix this...please!


Thanks again in advance,
John

Hi, John. When you start the pc, during BIOS POST do you see your hd listed? Is it SATA? If it is listed then BIOS has detected its controller hardware\software and that is working fine. IF it is listed and SATA... then XP needs a driver for that type of hd, and during Setup with your cd you will be requested to press F6 and load that driver via floppy.

You have a SATA drive, and it's no longer recognized by the OS.
If your files are really important, take it somewhere to recover them or follow the procedure I outlined above.

sound like dead drive to me .dead ,dead ,no longer working, they do die ,like the engine in you car !or the light in the ceiling!!!
you should not need to install sata drivers to run the recovery console on a installed working harddrive !

Happy to defer to the bloke who does this stuff every day! You are correct, caper, re SATA driver and recovery console.... I did just now check though, and when it is loading from a cd [eg, XP installation cd] it does ask for the driver but then moves happily on. Annoying, cos when I used Recovery Console from cd to play once, I believed it, hit F6 and so on... sigh. I have it now [RC] on a hd so no quibble there.

Happy to defer to the bloke who does this stuff every day! You are correct, caper, re SATA driver and recovery console.... I did just now check though, and when it is loading from a cd [eg, XP installation cd] it does ask for the driver but then moves happily on. Annoying, cos when I used Recovery Console from cd to play once, I believed it, hit F6 and so on... sigh. I have it now [RC] on a hd so no quibble there.

yeah the f6 option is there when ever you boot to the disk ,as you now know, you only hit it to for a new install of winxp

As for the cause of the problem, I would say the program you were deleting files from had integrated itself into the system. Then when the parts of the program integrated with the system tried to load on bootup, it couldn't find some of the files and you would have needed to do a full registry clean with a complete wipe of old system files and modifications of saved data of system files. In otherwords you would have had to go through all of what I said above and maybe a few other things to be able to remove what you deleted.

So now for the answer:
You have 2 options. One is to first borrow a second computer. Then you need to get a network cord to plug these 2 computers together. You may find an old phone cord or a router cord will do the job. After connecting the 2 computers together, use Remote Desktop to hack into your laptop and copy the files to the working computer via network cord. That option is only usefull if Remote Desktop is enabled on your laptop.

The second option:
You could just get a 40GB external hardrive and install windows onto that external hardrive. Then set up in bios to boot from the external hardrive and after booting from the external hardrive, copy all the files from your internal hardrive to your external hardrive and reinstall windows to your internal hardrive. After that, set bios to boot from the internal hardrive. Then copy your files from your personal files from the external hardrive to the internal hardrive. After that you can format the external hardrive and use it for whatever you want.

Member Avatar for thunderstorm98

There's no need to Install RAID drivers for SATA HDD. In the BIOS options go Hardware section and search for SATA IDE Mode..here select the Enhanced/Compatible mode and save it, then start your Setup or try to start your Windows.
Let me know then....

Hello everyone,

And again thanks everyone for taking out the time and trying to help me out. I know I keep saying thank you, its just that I know all of you guys spare time is not free and I really appreicate it.

As for looking in the BIOS for 'select the Enhanced/Compatible mode' I cannot find it. Could it be called something else? Before going into BIOS a screen comes up saying 'press F2 for BIOS'

After pressing F2 the next screen in BIOS, has 5 tabs...they are named:

MAIN
Adjust just the time and date

ADVANCED
I/O Device Configuration
DMI Event Logging
Plug & Play O/S: Yes
Legacy USB Support: Enabled
Large Disk Access Mode: DOS
Quiet Boot Mode: Enabled
Execute-Disable Bit Capability Enabled

SECURITY
Set Supervisor Password: Enter
Set Main HDD Password: Enter

BOOT
Cdrom/dvd
Removable Device
Main Hard Drive
Boot to Lan
Usb Storage Stick

EXIT
Exit Saving Changes
Exit Discarding Changes
Load Setup Defaults
Discard Changes
Save Changes


********END OF BIOS*********

And thats it...please let me know which one it might be and I will do it. Again...everyone who has shared an idea...thank you.


You guys are the BEST!
John

Member Avatar for thunderstorm98

Your Welcome...
Well all BIOS are not same every setting differs by the model and software versions. As you have mentioned the settings above I can say its a 'Large Disk Access Mode' under Advanced options...Try changing that option then let me know what happens...

Regards...

Hello,

I have spent 2 days trying to find the answer to my problem and nothing works. I dont understand what is wrong and could truly use the help of this forum please.

The problem: I tried to clean up some room on my HD and deleted some files and etc. Then I figured it was time to do a diskDefrag because it has been a long time since. The Diskdefrag finished with no problems at all and windows was working just fine. I then shutdown the laptop and the next morning when I tried to start it, is when I had the bad luck.

When I power on the laptop, it goes thru all the steps, except after the black screen with the windows logo comes on with the stats bar, it goes away and the blue screen of death comes on with the following:

** stop: C000021a {Fatal System Error} The windows Logon Process System process terminated unexpectedly with status 0xc0000135

The system has been shut down **

I have tried every option the F8 Menu...from safe mode, safe mode with networking, to Last Know Configuration...and nothing freaking works....THEN I booting off a copied Windows XP Pro CD, and clicked 'ENTER' (Which all the forums say to choose that option) BUT when I did that the next screen said the following:

** Setup did not find any Hard disk drives installed in your computer. Setup cannot continue. To quit setup press F3 **


PLEASE...Someone help me to fix this. I'm running WinXP Pro and its a tablet laptop. In the past I would have no problem just losing everything and starting over, however there is alot of very important files on it, that I need because my son is handicapped and currently have a case with the Ins company about getting approval for equipment.

Please any ideas on what I could do would be very much appreicated. Keep in mind when explaining what to do that I'm not a pro and might not know how to do certain tasks.


Just to be clear...I cant get into windows at all. When I power on, it goes thru the steps but then stops and gives me the BSOD. I tried running the Winxp pro cd, and have only done the first option 'To setup Windows 2000/XP now, press ENTER'. I have NOT tried the other option 'using Recovery Console, press R' because I was told that this will erase ALL files.


Sorry for writing so much, it just that this Ins case is very important to my son and I'm very nervous that I might have screwed things up. I'm willing to try anything, please just let me know what to do. Thanks in advance for any help.

John Silko

base on this it would seem like your starting head on your hard drive is messed up. if this is the case you will have to run some 3rd party disk utility to get the drive to run. or you can try booting from the cd and going to the recovery console and run fixmbr, and run a chkdsk.

thunderstorm98...The 'Large Disk Access Mode' was set to [DOS]...and the only option I can change it to is [OTHER]. After changing it to [OTHER], I tried restarting it in normally and still same problem, I then tried safe mode and last know working and still same problem...

thunderstorm98, if your willing to keep throwing ideas at me, then I'm willing to keep trying. Whatever, you want to try next I will do it, just let me know. Again thanks for hanging in there with me.


bobbyraw...I tried booting from the winXP pro cd, however at the screen that says press [enter] for windows install OR [press r] for recvoery console...both options will not work. You also had mentioned about '3rd party disk utility to get the drive to run' Could you please provide a link or where I can find this utility and once I have it, how would I go about using it. Meaning, once I have the program burned to a cd, what should I do next to fix my error?

Again, I want to thank everyone for still trying to help me thru this. I know I keep saying thank you and I hope your not getting sick of hearing it. Its just I appreciate all the efforts to help me.

John

"both options will not work. "
Be more specific about this. What,exactly, happens?

Member Avatar for thunderstorm98

@ Jolusia08 (John)

Iam Sorry but I have no more Ideas to say...I told that above configuration because i have solved lot of issues (Not in DaniWeb but Practically) for OS Setup's non-recognition of SATA HDD and they worked 100% fine.
Hope other folks will help you and may problem get solved..

Regards...

"after the black screen with the windows logo comes on with the stats bar" - this at least indicates that the startup process [in BIOS] has located the active partition on the hd, that the boot sector code has been located and read, that that in turn has loaded ntldr from the root, and that ntldr is running.
ntldr has obviously loaded bootvid.dll [you are seeing the logo video] and a few other boot images. And then it stops; perhaps the Services key is corrupt and some boot device drivers are not being loaded, perhaps some of the drivers themselves are missing. It is the Services key which tells ntldr what to load; your Sata driver entry is included in there [the driver itself is in system32]...
You never did come back and tell me if you tried pressing F6 when you booted from the XP cd. If the Sata driver is not loaded then the cd's Setup will not see the hd - the cd's Setup boot process does not operate the same way as booting from the hd because it naturally has its own boot loader and driver files. When booting from the hd the boot sector code allows the system root to be read from the hd [but it does not show the system how to read any more than that].
During the normal hd startup do you see the progress bar under the logo move at all? - it should pass across four times... if it does not move then no further drivers are being loaded.

thunderstorm98...I want to thank you again for trying to think of ideas that might work. I truly do appreicate the effort made. Please keep me in mind incase you think of something, please come by and post it here.

hughv...This is what happens...The first screen I see is the Gateway and press F10 for Menu or F2 for BIOS Setting. If I do nothing, then the next screen that loads is black and reads...Press any key to boot from cd...I then quickly hit any key...and the next screen that loads is blue...at the very bottom of the blue screen it says press F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID Drive...then that wording goes away and it starts to say stuff like, loading kernal debugger and RAM disk driver and Open HOST Controller and etc etc...when that stuff is done, the blue screen reads as follows:(Starting from the top)

Windows XP Professional Setup

Welcome to Setup.

This portion of the setup program prepares microsoft windows XP to run on your computer.

* To set up windows XP now, press ENTER.
* To repair a windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.
* To quit setup without installing windows XP, press F3

(At the VERY bottom of screen in a grayish white bar, it reads)

ENTER=Continue R=Repair F3=Quit

When I press ENTER, the next screen reads the following...

Setup did not find any hard disk drivers installed in your computer.

Make sure any hard disk drivers are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.

(The next blue screen reads, the system will reboot in xyz seconds or press enter to restart) So I press enter and the laptop restarts again, I have to press anykey again to boot from disk...when I'm back to the main blue screen where I can press enter or R...this time I will press R and the screen the loads reads the same message as when I had pressed ENTER...it says that whole 'Setup did not find any hard disk drivers...' And that is all that it will alow me to do...Hughv, let me know if you have any ideas...please.

Gerbil...the question you asked me about the F6. Unless there is a different point in when the laptop is loading that you want me to press F6...the following is when I do it. The message says...Press any key to boot from cd. I press any key and the screen then turns blue and the first message that appears at the very bottom of the screen reads...press F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID Drive...after pressing F6 the next blue screen reads the following (Starting from the top to the very bottom)

Windows Setup

Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter. Currently, Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices(s):

<none>

* To specify additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drives, or special disk controllers for use with Windows, including those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer, press S.

* If you do not have any device support disks from a mass storage device manufacturer, or do not want to specify additional mass storage devices for use with Windows, press ENTER.

(At very bottom of screen in a grayish white bar, read the following)
S=Specify Additional Device ENTER=Continue F3=Exit

****Thats it for pressing F6**** Please let me know if you wanted me to press the F6 at a different point.

Your other question about the progress bar. This is what happens...the first screen that load when I power on the laptop, is a black screen that says GATEWAY and in at the bottom right side it says Press F10 Menu and Press F2 BIOS Setting...if I do nothing, then the next screen is black with the words 'Microsoft Windows' and the logo...under the wording is a progress bar, that does pass across. The 3 times I restarted the laptop today, I counted how many times it moved (not sure if you needed this info or not)... 1st time moved across 26, 2nd time 15 and 3rd time was 20. After it is done moving across, the next screen loads.

I know I might have wrote a more detailed step by step but I was not sure what everyone needs to know, and sometimes computers load or say things that are very different. Please let me know what you want me to try...and ideas would be great.


Again, I want to thank everyone for all their time and efforts.

John

when you hit f6 to load scsi device driver you will need these drivers on a floppy disk to pick the drive when asked at this point in the install ========

Windows Setup

Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify an adapter. Currently, Setup will load support for the following mass storage devices(s):

<none>

* To specify additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drives, or special disk controllers for use with Windows, including those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer, press S.

* If you do not have any device support disks from a mass storage device manufacturer, or do not want to specify additional mass storage devices for use with Windows, press ENTER.

Fine, John, that is a lot of good info. My progress bar sweeps across too fast for me to count the individual steps, but it sweeps 4 1/2 times across. Each sweep is supposed to represent so many drivers loaded. Once that stage is finished ntldr hands control to ntoskrnl.exe.
"* To specify additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drives, or special disk controllers for use with Windows, including those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer, press S."
==That is the F6 we are concerned with, and at this point you should press S and insert a floppy with the Sata driver on it. Now I am not sure if there is actually a fault with your driver or not, it was merely one step to test. A bad or missing Sata driver or reg entry would explain why Setup from the CD does not proceed to Recovery Console etc.
If you wish to actually test your hd then this should do a comprehensive check of it:
Your machine is actually still bootable so do this [this procedure will, by itself, burn a diagnostic program onto a cd which in turn may be used to boot your machine and check the hd] :
== Checking A HDD That Will Not Load The OpSys

You'll need access to a computer with Internet connectivity and a CD burner, plus a blank CD-R or CD-RW.
Then go to this link: http://www.woyaa.com/cgi-bin/downloa....cgi?ID=708646
or this link: http://support.thetechguys.com/Uploa...D/DiagCD23.exe
Either Run the file download, else Save diagcd23.exe to your computer and dclick it to run. The procedure is quite automatic: you will be asked to insert a blank CD for burning the file.
Once the disk is created, put it in your broken machine, then restart it. It should boot from the CD and then give you the opportunity to run a Long HDD (hard disk) test. The utility supports a wide range of disk manufacturers.
Say how you get on.

Boom-boom.

commented: LoL.. +3

Hey...


Well, it seems my luck thus far for this new year is not getting any better. The reason why I have not posted is because my apartment was broken into and a few things were taken. For whatever reason, they didnt stay long and ran off...but the damage is done and have spent the time cleaning up and trying to figure what was missing.

Gerbil...I will try that link and then try the cd...hope it works. Will this fix the problem or only find the problem? And after running the cd...is there a certain thing you want me to run or write down...meaning, do you want the full report from running this cd?

Thanks again so much for stick around


John

Pity they didn't take the machine, too. Okay, no, I don't need to see any report from that diagnostic program... you can just tell us its verdict.
It will only test to find problems,,, but at least you will know if your troubles are disk hardware based or not.
I still think that to get Setup to work you are going to need the Sata driver from your motherboard manuf...

Re-reading post #20 again i have to repaid what i said in one of my earlier post , that the hdd is dead ,no longer functioning,needs to be removed and replaced .You can play with all the 3rd party software you want .!!!! Actually I have and use Knoppix live cd that i would now use to check the for your hdd ,if knoppix doesn't see the drive then its dead or disconnected.
that my final answer !

Hello again and sorry for the delay once more. Between trying to track down some of the stolen goods and going to meet with the detectives...I need to sit down and try to fix this. I truly value everyones time and appeciate all ideas on fixing this problem.

Gerbil...I tried the cd and it runs fine. However, when I try to run the 'Long Hard Disk test'...the next screen that loads is grey and reads as follows from top to bottom:

STI Script Executor - Version 3.46RH --(225 k Bytes Free)
Platform Diagnostic Toolkit
Copyright 2006 by Seagate Technology

Then in the middle of the screen, it reads...'Finding Drives...'

And that is all that happens...I let it run until next morning and still the same screen...should something else happen? Does it take more then one day? am I doing something wrong?

caperjack...the Knoppix live cd you speak about...is it free to download? Is there a certain version or etc Knoppix live cd that I should look for? If I find it, what test or steps do I take to check out my HDD?


Again, I want to thank everyone for still trying to help my family and I fix this problem. Thanks so much!

You've gotten all the advice you need.
This HD is not going to boot, nor will it be found by any diagnostic program.
You may get lucky if you remove it and connect it via USB, but that's doubtful.
Take it to a pro, or just forget it and move on.

You've gotten all the advice you need.
This HD is not going to boot, nor will it be found by any diagnostic program.
You may get lucky if you remove it and connect it via USB, but that's doubtful.
Take it to a pro, or just forget it and move on.

my sentiments exactly !

as for Knoppix yes it free ,as for version ,doesn't matter ,just use it to see if your hdd is present !

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