Missing system32 files

February 22, 2010 2:49:03 PM

Last week I found a virus on this old windows 2000 laptop when caused a login loop after cleaning parts of the virus. I was able to resolve the login loop by using "ultimate boot CD" to make a registry change. Once that was resolved I cleaned the virus and all as good until the first reboot. On reboot Windows ran chkdsk (didn't have an option to stop it) and when complete Windows wouldn't load since it said PCI.sys was missing or corrupt. I used "ultimate boot CD" again to get to a DOS prompt and saw that the c:\winnt\system32\drivers directory was empty. I was able to copy the files from the dllcache and other directories and Windows loaded. The only issue is that when Windows loads I have no Keyboard, Mouse, USB, NIC, PCMCIA etc....

I have access to the keyboard before windows loads and I'm able to boot to the USB CD Rom but I can't load windows to do a reinstall or repair because of a 0x7B (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) BSOD. I'm able to boot into "ultimate boot CD" but not all of the utilities work when they start to load the CD ROM. Some of the DOS tools do work though.

Any ideas how I can get full access to the keyboard,mouse, USB, NIC and PCMCIA when windows loads without doing a reinstall? If I can get at the HD from another PC can I copy the Windows install CD to a directory or partition and install from that partition?

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aeacxar

February 28, 2010 7:15:59 PM

Did you try booting off the windows cd and reinstalling off of that sometimes it will permit installing over a previous install sort of refreshing the windows files, if you can do that it should then allow you to use windows normally.

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daveackerman30

March 1, 2010 1:20:51 PM

I tried that but the laptop only has an external USB CD Rom and when booting from the Win2K CD the drivers load but when windows loads it gives me the BSOD. I reallyd don't care about the data on the HDD so if I have to format and reinstall Win2K I don't care. The only problem. I have is how am I going to load Windows if I can't boot from CD? I'm thinking about taking the HDD out of the laptop, connecting it to a working PC and copying the Win2k CD to it so I can boot off of it. I really don't what to do that so anyone knows any easier way please let me know.

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aeacxar

March 3, 2010 10:10:14 PM

Can you boot into ultimate boot cd then switch out the windows cd. I've done that with a win 98 cd when my computer would not boot from a floppy. Other than that I really cant see how to avoid removing the hard drive and loading windows that way, but once you have the cd rom running i don't see why you couldn't start windows setup.

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