Boot loader and NTLDR errors

I dual boot my Windows XP machine with Ubuntu. Feeling like I needed to reignite my interest in Ubuntu I decided to give the OS a visual facelift and upgrade to the latest version. Unfortunately for me, after the upgrade had completed it would no longer boot Ubuntu. As Ubuntu was just for me to play around with I figured I could always reinstall at a later date so for the meantime I would reinstall the Windows bootloader. If only things we so simple. Using the Windows Recovery Console I hoped to reinstall the MBR and get going but my administrator password didn't work. Windows could only reset my MBR to the recovery partition, which then promptly corrupted and wouldn't boot either! Having a panic attack that I wouldn't be able to get back Windows XP and my vast amounts of personal documents I frantically searched the internet for an answer. 

All I can say is thank goodness for the internet and those kind people who post solutions and free software to fix these kind of problems. I found a lifesaving site where some kind soul had created a bootloader CD that could bypass the Windows bootloader and allow you to boot the computer. The instructions on the site are simple and illustrated, and I am so grateful to whoever created it. I've posted the link below so if anyone ever encounters this problem they can find an easy fix for it.

http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm

Game Booster

I've come across an amazing little piece of software called 'Game Booster'. It automatically turns off several services and programs running on your computer that you don't need when playing games. This frees up extra RAM and CPU that can be dedicated to playing your PC games. It's worked wonders for me while my PC is a little low on RAM. On my Vista machine which at startup uses 768MB of RAM, it reduces that memory usage by 100MB. It's not a lot but it makes the difference between playing The Sims 2 in 'juddery' mode or in 'smooth' mode (please note these two terms are not options in the game, just my way of describing how the game plays!). Okay so anyone using a PC with 4GB or above memory probably doesn't need this software but if you're using a slightly older PC and still want to run some of the more recent games (or even give your old games a speed boost) then this software is perfect!

 

You can download it or find more information about it here:

 

http://iobit.com/gamebooster.html

Recover Windows XP from corrupt or missing C:\Windows\System

Ever seen the old Windows XP error message:


Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM


I've seen it several times and on all but the most recent occasion it has resulted in me having to completely reinstall Windows. This is not an ideal solution and so I sought out an alternative that would mean I could recover Windows XP from this error. Eventually I found this solution on the Microsoft Support site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545


Open Recovery Console (or Windows PE with command prompt) and then enter the following:

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default


The Microsoft Support site goes on further than the brief commands listed above, but the commands above are enough to get Windows XP up and running again. I've used this solution several times since discovering it and I'm thinking about setting up a batch script on a USB memory stick to automate the recovery procedure. 


Thank you support.microsoft.com for yet another solution to make my life a little less stressful!

HP LaserJet 2600n Hidden Service Menu

During a troubleshooting session of a HP LaserJet 2600n printer I happened across a post on the official HP forums about a second level service menu. It's hidden away by default but you can access it by pressing the Green button, then the Left Arrow and Orange Cancel button at the same time, and finally the Green button again. This enables the Second Level Service option in the main menu. From here you can choose different calibration settings, additional reporting and higher level cleaning options.

While it didn't help solve my problem, from a support perspective it could prove to be very useful indeed.

0×80248014 Error Code Updating Microsoft Security Essentials

So for the passed few days I haven't been able to update Microsoft Security Essentials and have been taking a bit of a security risk running without the latest virus definitions. So I decided today to try and find out what the error was that kept stopping MSE from updating. A quick search on Google and I'd found my answer courtesy of Discover Your PC.net.


It turns out that a lot of Windows updating problems are related to the SoftwareDistribution folder. So fixing the problem is a case of three simple steps:


1. Turn off the Windows Update service. The website above lists this as the Vista/7 "Windows Update" service, however I am still using XP and after a little searching you have to turn off "Automatic Updates". 


2. Go to C:\Windows (or whatever drive your Windows installation is on). Locate the folder 'SoftwareDistribution' and delete it.


3. Restart Windows Update/Automatic Updates. 


This solved my problem and apparently solves various other issues relating to updating Windows. Wish I'd known this a long time ago!

Activating a Repair Install Windows XP

I've recently upgraded my laptop and in order to keep all of my installed software (especially one-time promotional software from Giveaway of the Day) I created an image of my harddrive to copy across to my new laptop. Unfortunately, with my new laptop being a dual-core and my previous laptop only a Celeron, Windows suddenly found that it didn't have all the drivers installed that it needed and refused to boot. The only recovery from this was to run a Windows XP repair install which did the trick perfectly. However, because my system configuration had changed dramatically Windows activation had been reset. When I tried to log in I was now greeted by a dialogue box informing me that my copy of Windows was not activated and needed activating before I could use it. That's fine by me, my Windows product key is valid, so I was happy to go ahead. Except for one problem; when I tried to use the Windows Activation tool my laptop just appeared to freeze up.

The first thing I tried was booting into safe mode, but this was a no go because "Windows cannot be activated in safe mode". So I could neither log in or activate Windows in safe mode or normal loading. After much hunting online, and nearing the point where I was just going to reinstall everything from scratch, I discovered a very useful piece of information; Windows activation is dependent on Internet Explorer. Of course by repairing my Windows installation I had reverted to the default version 6 of Internet Explorer that is built into Windows XP. Except I hadn't reverted properly because obviously some of the IE6 files were overwritten by IE8 files. So I knew what the problem was. Next question was how to reinstall Internet Explorer so that I could run the activation program and get into Windows again.

Now here's the really cheeky bit! A little more research turned up a forum post that described how to get into an expired activation Windows. It turns out that although Windows won't let you log in via a normal boot or through safe mode, if you choose to boot into 'Safe Mode with Command Line' you can then run 'explorer' from the CMD line and your Windows desktop will load just as if you were in safe mode! 

From here I installed IE8, rebooted and when I tried to activate normally, low and behold the activation window appeared and I could complete the activation procedure and log into Windows normally. It took me an entire evening to work out but this knowledge has proved indispensable as I've put it to use on another occasion since then. For all those of you struggling with this, or a similar problem, I hope this saves you the hours I spent trying to find a solution!