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I recently tried to run services.msc and I noticed it had vanished from my hard drive. So I had the great idea of looking up a windows xp cd, booting from it and selecting the "repair existing windows install" option.
Everything was going just fine until I almost hit the end of the progress bar and I got a message box with the message:
"The exception unknown software exception (0xc0000409) occurred in the application at location 0x6976ea96"
After that, I hit OK, and the machine reboots, goes into setup again, gets the same exception, and so on, ad infinitum.
I tried booting with Hirens Boot CD 14.1 and running the Registry Backup & Restore Tool as suggested here, but I got an error, and I doubt it'd have worked since I only have a CCleaner .reg backup from ages ago.
I read somewhere that repair can only be done successfully if you use the exact same cd you used for installing. I'm not sure if I used the same one, and it'd be quite gruesome to look for the one I used for the install.
Any other suggestion?
Update:
- Checked my motherboard, no apparent physical damage
- Ran MemTest86+ using Hirens Boot CD. After 4 passes, no errors were found
- Ran SeaTools from a bootable CD. Both drives passed the
Long Testwithout any errors
So it doesn't seem to be a hardware problem...
dario_ramos
Posted 2011-09-12T12:44:14.917
Reputation: 398
Test your hard drive and memory modules for problems...see post 2 and 3, edit you question to include the results...http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Lockups-Freezes-Hangs/How-to-test-RAM-and-HDD-Hard-Drive/td-p/301638
– Moab – 2011-09-12T13:27:16.343Done, all hardware seems OK. Check my updated answer – dario_ramos – 2011-09-12T20:22:55.217
1What I think happened is you used a XP cd with a lower service pack than what you had installed, now you have a mixed set of system files, I would back up your data and do a clean install of XP. – Moab – 2011-09-12T20:59:43.533
So there's no recovering from this? I might find the right CD if I keep searching – dario_ramos – 2011-09-13T00:43:48.720
Doubtful if it repaired using a different service pack than what was installed. – Moab – 2011-09-13T01:06:57.373
Which version of windows XP is it? Also, if your files are important and you have a Linux Live CD, boot from that and save as many of your important items as you can before taking any further steps in the repair process. – jmreicha – 2011-09-13T13:30:29.903
@jmreicha: At the time of the repair, an XP Professional SP3 with all latest updates. At the time of install... not so sure :P. Yeah, I already backed up everything using Hirens Boot CD – dario_ramos – 2011-09-13T14:09:43.897
@dario_ramos: Good to know you're all backed up. It really shouldn't matter which disk you're repairing from as long as it is a Pro version. If you use an sp1 disk to repair you will essentially just roll your system back and have to update from sp1 -> sp3 which is time consuming but won't "blow anything up". Try another repair install and see if it craps at the same point. – jmreicha – 2011-09-13T14:58:50.230
@jmreicha: That was the very first thing I tried (repairing from the CD again), and it failed exactly the same way. Maybe the CD is damaged (I ruled out the DVD deck since Hirens Boot CD works alright), gonna try making a copy of the CD – dario_ramos – 2011-09-13T22:29:04.723
Yeah you are spot on. You may try cleaning the XP disc with isopropyl alcohol while looking for another disc. I am curious to see what happens. – jmreicha – 2011-09-14T13:27:54.100