BleepingComputer.com: NTLDR is compressed

Hello Good Folk,

Extremely gutted to have to seek help with what was once a perfectly good laptop... then after collecting it from my daughters bedroom its not behaving!

Laptop:
ADVENT 7109A
Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005

Just replaced the keyboard after dropping a glass of wine on it one evening....
the laptop survived the wine and was working perfectly well with a remote keyboard. I got fed up with fighting over the keyboard with the rest of the family and didn't use the lap top for a few months while I waited (VERY) patiently for my new keyboard to arrive. Fitted it and was chuffed to bits - a great laptop - though needed to get a battery as this one is dead in the water. Have been using it for a couple of weeks with the power cable while Battery is on order... yawn

Anyway.. fetched my beloved loyal and forgiving laptop from my daughters room one evening and on powering up it went straight into Advent System Recovery...

It's 'protected' by PC Angel.

I chose Non-Destructive System Recovery ~ next

The message window stated "Windows XP has its own built-in repair features such as the System Restore and driver roll-back capabilities. If you have not already tried these features lease run them before continuing with this system recovery."

Now I have no idea... I'm thinking no - I haven't run them but have no clue without instruction how to do that from this stage - I was after all bought here without choice.

It continues "Do you want to continue with System Recovery?".. being cautions I said No..

Next message gave the option to either continue with system recovery, restart with Windows System Restore or go back to first message... I clicked Restart with Windows System Restore and was taken to NTLDR is compressed - press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart... so I did... and it took me back to NTLDR is compressed - press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart - and the story goes on... and on..CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart

Eventually I found out that if I press F10 on reboot I get back to "Advent System Recovery". This time I said Yes to "Do you want to continue with System Recovery?". As I remember it indicated some file movement.. but took me straight back to NTLDR is compressed - press CTRL+ALT+DEL.

In frustration I seem to remember taking it back to "Advent System Recovery" and clicking on "System Recovery - No Format" and thought it'd be ok as it stated no files would be lost but some applications would need to be re-installed.. I did that twice I think - and don't want to do it again as I'm sure I read it can damage my files. Would clearly like to keep them as I'm one of those idiots who don't think of backing up until its too late (just had to replace hardrive on daughters laptop! - hence her using mine)

Over the last two nights I have tried a number of command prompts (after googling and Alt+D) but nothing has worked... I have, after all, no idea what I'm doing.

This is what I have tried:

The text in command prompt is c:\minint\system32>
I then entered:"dir ntldr" and got:

Volume in drive C is RECOVERY
Volume Serial Number is 73E1-7A9C
Directory of c:\minint\system32
File Not Found

After googling some more I worked out that I had to try to fix ntldr in the operating system partition not the recovery partition (C:). I entered "D:" (please don't ask me why... I seem to remember trying all letters in the alphabet to see if I'd get a result!)

with the command prompt "D:\>" I then entered "cd \windows\system32"

at "D:\WINDOWS\system32>" I entered "compact ntldr /u h:\ntldrexit"

and got:
Uncompressing files in D:\WINDOWS\system32\
Uncompressing files in d:\
0 files within 2 directories were uncompressed.

D:\WINDOWS\system32>

Tried a number if times....

Also tried the "attrib -c c:\ntldr" but kept getting "invalid switch - -c" so abandoned that one as I couldn't work out which 'switch' would be valid for uncompressing....

So... I typed exit - powered off and drank more wine... away from all computers in sight....

Any ideas how I can revive my old faithful? Talking to it under the influence just doesn't cut it....

Help much appreciated!

You need to access the Windows Recovery Console
I doubt if it's installed on your Advent

We will have to create a small 'fix CD' to solve this problem.
Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO and install it.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

This should give you a bootable copy of the Recovery console. From there you can follow these directions for a system Restore:
http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=150212

If that doesn't work, try this from the recovery Console:


Press R to repair the Windows XP installation using Recovery Console.

Enter the appropriate number for the WINDOWS installation, for example, the WINDOWS installation could be listed as 3: C:\WINDOWS or 3: D:\WINDOWS .

If prompted, enter your Administrator password and press Enter . If there is no password, just press Enter .

At the prompt, if the WINDOWS installation you selected in Step 4 was C:\WINDOWS, type: cd c:\
Or, if the WINDOWS installation you selected in Step 4 was D:\WINDOWS, type: cd d:\

At the prompt, type:
attrib -c ntldr
and then press Enter .

At the prompt, type: exit

Press the Enter key and immediately remove all discs or diskettes from the computer to allow the computer to restart.
The error message should be resolved.

This post has been edited by garmanma: 28 April 2009 - 02:19 PM

Hey thanks for such a quick response!

Ok - so I downloaded RC.iso and MagicISO - burnt the CD and loaded it to laptop...

press any key to start... do I did

YEY... we have life!

I'm typing this as I go...

I let it do its thang then got the blue screen stating:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down.....
If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen restart..."

plus additional info about checking for adequate disc space and BIOS updates.

I asked lovely daughter if she had seen this and she innocently said "no?"

So... I restarted. Power off then on - CTRL+ALT+DELETE didn't respond.

Back to the same screen....

Technical Information at the bottom of the message:
*** STOP: 0X0000007E (0XC0000005, 0XF76130BF, 0XF7A5F208, 0XF7A5EF08)
*** pci.sys - Address F76130BF base at F760C000, Datestamp 3b7d855c

... stumped agin!

BTW the link just took me to a thread giving another link to the iso file... no directions for a system restore... unless I'm being totally thick!

I guess you figured I couldn't go any further as I cant access (or don't know how to!) the Recovery Console - this is assuming you meant the disc I just burnt?

The RC ISO should be the Recovery control Panel
Does that not show up when you insert the burnt CD?

No.. what it did was come up with a black screen asking me to press any key to continue.. and if i didnt do that quickly it gave me my usual "NTLDR is compressed" message..

So once i pressed any key it began to show life on a blue screen saying Windows Setup with a grey strip at the bottom which showed set up files loading.. then just as it said windows was starting up it went to the blue screen..

After loading the CD, before booting...you did change the boot options in the BIOS...from the hard drive to the optical drive, as the first option?

Louis

Honestly... when I put the CD in I get exactly as I described...a black screen asking me to press any key to continue..
I press a key and get a screen saying "Windows Setup" with the grey strip at the bottom showing set up files loading..
then the blue screen..

So please tell me how I can change the BIOS? I will do my level best to try and try again but really.. I am explaining things very exactly.... I'm not missing a thing out...

Ok... just tried a couple of things here.. I know enough from exploring a little to know that I might be able to check BIOS.

I pressed F2 in booting without disc (after NTLDR... CTRL_ALT-DELETE to restart) for the BIOS setup.. and across to 'Boot'. The Boot Device Priority starts with "1: IDE CD: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW TS-L632D-"
so I'm guessing it boots from the CD drive? - and am guessing this is what you mean by optical drive?
Perhaps this is the problem and it should be set to boot from HDD?
I'd rather not play too much with that area without advice from those who know so I await your advice!
Please remember though.. I am a long time 'user' and by no means an expert when it comes to the workings, or even lingo, of these things...

Awaiting your next step!

Boot Device Priority...that's what I'm talking about .

You...or any other user...can always use Google to look up any computer term that you are unfamiliar with. I urge you to do such and not necessarily rely on explanations from those who may not be as explicit as Google efforts will prove to be.

Boot device priority determines what boot device the system will look for.

Generally, the first boot device may be the hard drive (either IDE or SATA), in which case the system will try to boot from a CD/DVD (optical) drive only if booting from hard drive fails or...the optical drive is made to be the first boot option.

If the boot option is changed so that the system boots from the optical drive...and you have properly burned the Recovery Console CD, as instructed Garmanma...you should not be getting the error message you reported.

IMO...you probably should have just exercised the recovery option on your system...and not tried any other self-help measures without an XP install CD (which would have facilitated a clean install and/or a repair install effort).

Louis

Thank you for the explaination Louis - and for your assistance garmanma. I understand it must be tiresome to have to explain explicitly what the novice needs to do.. believe me - Google is my friend and I do try - however it can take one down some spurious routes!

I use the Advent System Recovery option up to the point where I felt I might risk loosing data - so I googled, tried various options advised to others with the same message - to no avail - then having exhausted those options came here to bother you good people for help to see if I could avoid loss of data.. and I dont have the XP install CD.

So the only option I have is to either take the other options in Advent System Recovery which look like all data will be lost or try burning the RC.iso to CD again?.
I did have to guess what to do with MagicISO once I followed the instructions given by garmanma:
"Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open."

Once opened the rc.iso file in MagicISO I wasnt sure what to do so I selected the option to burn the CD - seemed like the obvious choice.. and it seemed to do something.. but perhaps I didnt burn the CD right? Please let me know what I should do after opening the file so I can make sure I do it right..? I used a CD/R.

I have my wedding photos and pics of my baby grandson on there and really dont want to loose them I've learnt my lesson on backing up! Promise!

Any further help would be really appreciated...

Your view of options is limited, IMO...there are always more alternatives than first seen.

You can either borrow an XP install CD...or buy one...and provide yourself with the ability to attempt a repair install of XP, in a manner that is fairly well-documented. There is no guarantee that a repair install will work on your system at this time...but a repair install should always be tried before a clean install.

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/laptop/7109a.htm

And options such as this exist: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Advent-6001-7105-710...428135001r20604

If users backed up their systems routinely...many of these situations could be easily overcome. I suggest considering that, once you get the system righted.

Louis

Ok thank you Louis.. I hadn't realised I could borrow an XP install CD if my version of XP was different (Media Centre, not Home or Pro) - the ones supplied with the laptop are long gone after moves accross the country and with flailing finances buying the replacements was going to be the last resort.
The first link you gave me has been very helpful in the past - especially when I had to buy and re-fit the keyboard.. and I knew this is where I might have to go to source any replacement CDs.

I've now arranged for a visiting relative to take it away and see what he can do - hopefully he has all the knowledge and materials needed and can save my data.

It sure is a shame that many of us wait until a real loss of data happens before thinking of backing up - and I'm certain I'm not alone - however, as said, you can be sure I will back up regularly from now on..

Thanks for your help anyway.. Nikki