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Windows XP Error: STOP 0×000000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

Sep 4

Posted by Admin in Troubleshooting, Windows XP | No Comments


You may encounter a blue screen stop error while starting your Windows Vista Operating System. This usually happens when the computer is unable to access booting files or the File System. If you encounter this message, follow the steps below:

  1. Restart the Computer
  2. Tap the “F8” key while the computer is restarting to get to the Startup Options screen
  3. From this options screen, use the arrow keys on the keyboard to highlight “Safe Mode” and then press “Enter” key
  4. Once you reach the desktop of your Windows XP computer, click on “Start”à “Run” and type “chkdsk c:/f” and press the “enter” key.

This will launch the disk checking wizard which will look at the Hard Drive on your computer for any bad sectors. If there are many bad sectors, you should take back-up of your data and replace the hard drive.

 

If above steps do not work, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to the “Safe Mode” as described above
  2. Double Click on “MY Computer” or click on “Start” and then click on “My Computer”.
  3. On the next screen, right click on the primary hard drive partition and on the pop-up menu, click on “Properties”.
  4. On the next screen, click on the “Tools” tab
  5. Click on “Check Now” button in the “Error Checking” box

Make sure that you check the option for “Scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors” on the Check Disk options screen. You can also select “Automatically Fix” file systems check box.

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Tags: 0x000000024, Error, Microsoft, NTFS_File_System, Stop, windows, XP

Vista Error after installing Service Pack 1: 0×800410003

Aug 31

Posted by Admin in Troubleshooting, Windows Vista | No Comments


Microsoft Windows Vista may throw an error right after installing Vista Service Pack 1. This is usually a blue screen error with error code 0×800410003. If you encounter this error after installing SP1 on Vista, follow the steps below:

  1. Restart the computer
  2. While the computer is booting, tap the “F8” key to get the startup options screen
  3. On this screen, select “Safe Mode with Command Prompt“. Please note that your mouse would not function on this option screen. To select this option, use the arrow keys on the keyboard to select the option and press “Enter” once the option is highlighted.
  4. You will have to provide an “Administrator” password to login now.
  5. This will take you to a command prompt window with a blinking cursor. On this screen, type “net stop winmgmt” and press the “Enter” key
  6. Now type “DEL c:\Windows\System32\wbem\Repository\*.*” and hit “Enter“
  7. Restart the computer again

This should resolve the Blue Screen issue on your computer.

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Tags: 0x800410003, Blue Screen, Error, Microsoft, Service Pack 1, SP1, Vista, windows

NTLDR Missing or Corrupt: Solution

Aug 26

Posted by Admin in Troubleshooting | No Comments

 
NTLDR is an abbreviation for NT Loader. This is the boot loader for all Windows based Operating systems on NT technology, like Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. It is run from the primary hard drive, but can be executed from a removable media like a CD-ROM. This requires boot.ini file to be present to function properly.

 

This error usually appears in the following formats:

“NTLDR is Missing

Press any Key to Continue”

 

“NTLDR is Missing

Press Ctrl Alt Del to restart”

 

There are various causes for this error message:

  1. PC is booting off a CD-ROM or USB drive or any external drive/device
  2. Corrupt files and file configuration
  3. Corrupt sectors on Hard Drive
  4. BIOS problems

 

Solution

  1. Restart the computer to check if the problem still occurs. If this is intermittent, there is a high probability that the connection to the hard drive is loose.
  2. Check if you have a floppy drive or CD/DVD in the CD/DVD drive. If you have any, try booting the computer without these disks.
  3. Check the settings in BIOS. You should check for detection of Hard Drive on the BIOS Screen. A sample screen looks like below:

 BIOS1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bios2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make sure that you have something listed against IDE Primary Master / Hard Drive / First Boot Device, depending on the BIOS that you have.

 

4. If the above steps don’t help (in most cases they don’t), try to extract and restore the booting files from Windows installation Disc. If you don’t have the disc, you can borrow the disc from someone else. This does not violate the piracy norms set by Microsoft. To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Set the First Boot Device in BIOS to CD/DVD drive. Enter the Windows installation disc in the drive and restart the computer. You will see a prompt to “Press any key to boot from CD”. At this prompt, press any key on the keyboard to boot from CD.
  • On the selection screen that comes after the setup has loaded all the files, press “R” to go to recovery console. You may be prompted to enter your administrator password on the screen here.
  • The next screen will look like a command prompt, with a black screen and blinking cursor. On this screen type the following commands:

                                                                                       i.      Copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\

                                                                                     ii.      Copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

 

Here, d: refers to the CDROM drive and c: refers to the partition in which Windows is installed on your machine.

  • If you get a prompt to replace the existing file, press “Y” to confirm
  • Once this is done, take the Windows disc out of the drive and type “exit” to restart the computer.

 

This should replace the existing corrupt files with a set of new files. On restart, your computer should boot properly without any error message.

 

 5. If these steps also don’t resolve the issue and you still get the same NTLDR missing message, boot from the Windows installation disc and go to the recovery console prompt again (As explained in first few steps above). On the recovery console, follow the steps below:

  • Type “bootcfg” and press Enter
  • You will get a prompt to “Add installation to Boot List?” after you press Enter key. Type “Y” to say Yes and press Enter key again
  • You will get another prompt to enter the name of the installation. On this prompt, type “Windows XP Professional” or “Windows XP Home” depending on the version of OS that you are using and press Enter.
  • You will get another prompt to enter OS Load Options. On this screen type “/Fastdetect” and press Enter Key again.
  • Now take the Windows installation disc out of the drive and type “exit” to restart the computer.

These steps will reconfigure the Boot.ini file on your computer.

 

6. If you are still getting the NTLDR missing message, you will need to go to the Recovery Console again and attempt to fix the Boot Sector on the hard drive. This command will rewrite the boot sector information. To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Go to the Recovery console as described earlier
  • On the command prompt, type “FIXBOOT” and then press the Enter key
  • Once the process is over, take out the Windows installation disc and type “Exit” to restart the computer.

This should resolve the issue if the issue is with Boot Sector information on hard drive.

 

7. If you still face the NTLDR Missing message, the problem could be with the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the hard drive. To fix this, follow the steps below

  • Boot to the Recovery Console as described above
  • On the command prompt, type “FIXMBR” and press Enter key
  • This will rewrite the existing MBR on your hard drive. Please note that if you have installed any recovery software, it will not function in pre boot state if you perform this step.
  • Once the process is over, take out the Windows installation disc and type “Exit” to restart the computer.

 

8. If the problem still exists, you will have to perform Repair Installation of Windows.

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Tags: boot, bootcfg, console, corrupt, Error, fixboot, fixmbr, MBR, Microsoft, missing, NTLDR, Recovery, Repair, Windows XP

Windows XP does not start after installing Windows Vista as a dual boot option

Aug 17

Posted by Admin in Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments


You may be unable to log into Windows XP after installing Windows Vista and making your computer a dual OS / dual boot machine. This primarliy happens when Windows Vista is installed in unallocated space on the hard drive that existed in front of the Windows XP partition. To resolve this issue, follow the steps below:

(Please note that you will need administrative rights on your login to perform these steps.)

  1. Boot the computer into Windows Vista
  2. Right click on the “Start” button and on the pop up menu, click on “Explore“
  3. Click on ”Organize” option and then on the drop down menu, click on “Folder and Search Options“
  4. Click on the “View” tab
  5. In the advanced settings area, click “Show hidden files and folders“. Click on the checkbox next to “Hide extension for known file types” to uncheck it and then click on “Hide protected sytem files (Recommended)” to uncheck it. Click “yes” to confirm that you want to display operating system protected files and then click on “OK”
  6. Locate the Windows XP drive by using the “Computer” panel browsing (Start–>Computer)
  7. Now locate “boot.ini” file. Right click on it and click on “properties” on the pop up menu
  8. On the boot.ini properties window, click on Security tab and then click on “Advanced“
  9. Click on the “Owner” tab and then click on “edit“. If you get a prompt to enter administrator password, type your password to continue to the next step.
  10. In the change owner list, Click your alias or leave the default option selected. Now click on “OK” 4 times.
  11. Now right click on boot.ini file again and click on “Edit” on the pop up menu
  12. On this window, modify the Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) path to the correct Windows XP partition

These steps will solve your issues with Windows XP booting and allow you to enjoy both the operating systems compleltely.

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Tags: boot, dual, Error, issue, Microsoft, Vista, windows, XP

Microsoft Outlook Error: Could not create work file. Check the temp environment variable

Aug 14

Posted by Admin in Microsoft Outlook | No Comments


Microsoft Outlook is the most widely used email client across the globe. We have all used it and it works great with Microsoft exchange server in our corporate environment. There are times though when it throws unwanted errors. One of the error is: “Outlook could not create work file. Check the temp environment variable”.

To resolve this situation, follow the following 2 Methods, in order:

Method 1: Delete Temp files

  1. Minimize all the active windows to get back to the Windows desktop screen
  2. Click on Start and then click on Run
  3. On the Run box, type “temp”. If you are using windows Vista, just click on Start and type “temp” in the search box and click on the temp folder when it shows up on the results window
  4. Select all the files and delete them. Please note that these files would not delete any data from your computer. (Use ctrl+A to select all files)
  5. Follow the first 2 steps again and this time type/search for “%temp%”
  6. Select all the files here also and delete them. (Use ctrl+A to select all files)
  7. Now open/search for “cmd”. This is a command prompt window and will open a black screen with a blinking cursor
  8. On this window, type: “echo %temp%” (without the quotes) and press “Enter“
  9. It will take you back to the blinking cursor. Now type: “echo %tmp%” (without the quotes) and press “Enter“

Now try to use Microsoft Outlook once and see if you still get this message. If the error still exists, then follow the Method 2 below;

Method 2:

Please note that this step includes modifying the registry on your computer. If changes other than the ones listed below are made, it could render your computer in a non bootable state. You may have to reinstall windows also in some cases. Please follow these steps very carefully.

  1. Click on Start and then click on Run
  2. In the run box, type “regedit”. If your are using Windows Vista, type “regedit” in the search box and click on regedit on the search results once it shows up.
  3. This will launch the Registry Editor window with 2 panes
  4. On the left pane, locate and click on the (+) sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
  5. Under this tree, Now click on the (+) sign next to Software
  6. Under this tree, Now click on the (+) sign next to Microsoft
  7. Under this tree, Now click on the (+) sign next to Windows
  8. Under this tree, Now click on the (+) sign next to Current Version
  9. Under this tree, Now click on the (+) sign next to Explorer
  10. Under this tree, Now click on UserShellFolders
  11. On the right pane, there should be a value called “Cache”
  12. Right click on it and click on Properties on the pop up menu
  13. Change the default value for this key. It should be set to c:\Windows\Temp
  14. Restart the computer

    15.  

     

Both these steps will help you access Microsoft Outlook without the error message.

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Tags: Error, Microsoft, Outlook, registry, Temp, Variable

Windows Update Error 0×80073712

Aug 13

Posted by Admin in Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments


Microsoft has released 2 major security loophole fixes in past 2 months. This leads us to believe that the security risk in our daily computing life is increasing every day. To ensure that our computer remains safe from these unwanted threats, all of us want to keep our computer updated with latest updates from Microsoft. Unfortunately, windows updates are not 100% successful everytime on all the machines in the world. This is one of the most common error that is thrown to users who attempt to run Windows update manually or get this message after they restart the computer post automatic updates has finished installing the updates. To resolve this issue, follow the steps below:

  1. Browse to Windows Folder. This is usually c:\Windows
  2. Double click on the winsxs folder
  3. Locate the file pending.xml and rename it to pending.old
  4. Restart the computer and try installing the updates again

In most cases, during the rename process, you may get “Access Denied” message. If this happens, follow the steps below:

  1. Right Click on pending.xml
  2. On the pop up menu, click on Properties
  3. On the Properties window, click on Security tab
  4. On the Security tab, click on Advanced and then click on Owner tab
  5. In the Name list, click on “Administrator” or click on the “Administrators Group” and then click on OK.
  6. Click on “Add”
  7. On the “Enter the object names to select (examples) list”, type Everyone
  8. Click on OK
  9. In the “Group or Username list”, click on “Full Control”
  10. Click on OK

After the above steps, you will be able to rename the file “pending.xml”

I hope this will allow you to resolve this issue, if it ever occurs on your computer. Keep your computer updated & safe.

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Tags: Error, install, Microsoft, update, windows