hard drive shown as ? in recovery command

[steveblue]

Hello,

I need help in fixing a computer running windows xp pro. the computer was running fine till 2 days ago when it stopped booting.

Computer starts up, bots to xp screen then restarts

I have tried all safe boot options, none work. all fail at mup.sys

I have tried using xp disk to do a repair, and here's the fun part. The hard disk does not show up as C: in map command but is shown as the following:

? 2000mb

? 480000mb

D: cdrom

E: dvdrom

I have install the hard drive on another system by usb and ran disk checker on and the disk seems to be ok, can access all files on disk.

why is the disk showing as ? , I have tried the hard drive on a different IDE channel with the same results , is the hard drive showing up as ? the reason it wont boot??

Thanks

[ChiefZeke]

I did a Google search on mup.sys and found quite a few possible reasons for your problem - too many to post here.

[allen2]

First as you're having acces to your data right now, you should backup what you can't (or don't want to) reinstall.

Then you didn't said if the partition layout was already this one before. The first partition is a little small for a standard xp install so it might a recovery patition.

You're right the map command of the repair option of XP install CD pointed out something that can be the cause. You might be able to fix the problem using chkdsk /p /r from the XP install cd.

[Tripredacus]

I have tried all safe boot options, none work. all fail at mup.sys

This is one of the greatest misconceptions about that screen shown during Safe Mode boot. It doesn't FAIL at MUP.SYS, but whatever loads AFTER mup.sys. If you do a Step-By-Step boot instead, after you choose Y to mup.sys, it will prompt for something else. I would start looking there. Also you can try to turn bootlogging on.

[jaclaz]

I did a Google search on mup.sys and found quite a few possible reasons for your problem - too many to post here.

and ALL of them most probably unrelated.

mup.sys is the last file you see loaded, problem is with "NEXT" file that fails to load (and which you don' t see listed and that is not the same on all machines)

If the CHKDSK /R fails, best available option IMHO is to attempt a "repair" install:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

@allen2

JFYI:

http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htm

Running Chkdsk from the Recovery Console

Chkdsk is available from the Windows Recovery Console and can be a very valuable tool in dealing with a system that does not boot properly. The use of the Recovery Console is discussed elsewhere but note that many systems have been rescued by the Recovery Console command

chkdsk C: /R

Switches for the Chkdsk command in the Recovery Console are not the same as those in Table I. There are only two:

/P : Does an exhaustive check of the drive and corrects any errors. Does not check for bad sectors

/R : Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information. Includes functions of /P

The /P is IMPLIED by the /R.

http://commandwindows.com/recovery.htm

The One Command to Learn

If you learn no other commands to use in the Recovery Console, learn this:

chkdsk C: /r

jaclaz

Edited February 8, 2011 by jaclaz