Creating Recovery Disk - Tech Support Forums

dr_roberts49 · June 28th, 2004, 04:33 PM

My computer will no longer get pass the XP Pro (black) screen after locking up on a reboot after installing the latest ZoneAlarm upgrade. I've tried safe mode and advanced options, but nothing happens. Just hangs forever with no drive activity.
No matter what option I try in the F8 advanced reboot options, it just hangs forever at the welcome screen.

The real problem, is I can't find my recovery floppie so I can recover from my XP Pro CD. I just moved here, so much of my stuff is in confusion. I have important data on my main C: drive, so re-installing is out of the question. Here are my pleas for help:

Is it possible to make a recovery disk on another computer which is running XP Home Edition? Wisdom tells me no.

I have 2 other physical drives that I could install the OS to, and then retrieve and backup my important files. I cringe, thinking about this option.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'll check back later to see, since my email is down and I have no way of getting notifications except on this computer.

Thanking all in advance,

Robert

HeadBand · June 28th, 2004, 04:41 PM

you can just boot to the recovery console off of the cd

also you could do a reinstall without formatting (repair install) and see if that will do the job

dr_roberts49 · June 28th, 2004, 04:59 PM

Thanks, Headband. I forgot about the repair install. I guess I'm just stressed from moving and everything else associated with it.

Robert

John Prophet · June 28th, 2004, 05:28 PM

well you dont want the "recovery console"...you want to do a "repair install"....

boot from cd....ignore the first "R" cuz that is only the recovery console....instead just hit "enter" as if it were a fresh install....

it will search for and find your existing windows install and it will give you the option to repair it...so THAT is where you choose the "R"..SECOND "R", not the first

dr_roberts49 · June 28th, 2004, 06:49 PM

Repair install did the trick gentlemen. I'm back in business

I immediately backed up my important files and feel much better now. Thanks for the help and info. It was not a good experience, but the gang at TechIMO turned it into a GOOD experience.

Robert

John Prophet · June 28th, 2004, 06:55 PM

unfortunately (perhaps) we always seem to learn more thru some sort of trauma, lol..like most businesses learn the importance of backup AFTER they lose 2 years of financial records etc

wju425 · June 28th, 2004, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr_roberts49

Repair install did the trick gentlemen. I'm back in business

I immediately backed up my important files and feel much better now. Thanks for the help and info. It was not a good experience, but the gang at TechIMO turned it into a GOOD experience.

Robert

I hope you'll make it a routine and back up after you use the applications. My sis does online banking and quicken and the drive dumped her (worms in her win2k). I reformatted the drive, installed win98se, and made a small partition for her to save the data to. When the C drive crash the D drive will be still there. I told her after every entries she made, save them to D drive before closing. Every week burn 'em to the cd with a dated (as a name) folder. We'll never use a cdrw ever again! Never trust a damn cdrw.

\o/ Billy

fpantovich · June 28th, 2004, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wju425

I hope you'll make it a routine and back up after you use the applications. My sis does online banking and quicken and the drive dumped her (worms in her win2k). I reformatted the drive, installed win98se, and made a small partition for her to save the data to. When the C drive crash the D drive will be still there. I told her after every entries she made, save them to D drive before closing. Every week burn 'em to the cd with a dated (as a name) folder. We'll never use a cdrw ever again! Never trust a damn cdrw.

\o/ Billy

Unless the hard drive crashes as a whole, then she's screwed...always make two backups...one that's on a seperate hard drive or partition and one on a CD/Tape Backup/ZIP drive...

John Prophet · June 28th, 2004, 09:20 PM

yeah, I have always heard it said "having one backup is like having no backup"

of course..id be doing good to have one

fpantovich · June 28th, 2004, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Prophet

yeah, I have always heard it said "having one backup is like having no backup"

of course..id be doing good to have one

yep, that's why at my job, we have it setup where for every server there's an up to the second mirror on another server as well as a tape backup every hour and then we do a manual back on a different tape every 8 hours, heh...