windows booting problem

[mad_alfred]

hi all!

I'm having serius trouble with my winxp...
First of all its a dual booting system ( a 40Gb hd IDE- which is the one i'm using now and currently logged in as windows xp- and another 80Gb HD allways with windows xp but sata.... cables are fine! it worked fine 'till 2hours ago!!) and in second place the rest of the cfg is below in green as member signature.
The problem is that windows, on the sata drive won't boot at all! at prompt (where i can choose which os to boot works fine...i checked boot.ini and looks perfect...) no problems, but when i choose to load windows on the sata hd a screen appeares telling me that the system hasn't been properely loaded last time and I can choose if i want to boot in windows normally or try the last working configuration ecc... but if i choose to load win normally a black screen would appear whith nothing else happening and if i press any button the system would reboot. If i try to load the last working configuration an error message would tell me that some windows/system/vga850.fon file is missing or is damaged. I checked in Microsofts kb and it said it is a font problem, but it only affects windows 98. So i tryed to copy the .fon file from the windows xp install disk and i only found "vga850.fo_" so i copyed it to the windows/system/ folder and nothing changed, then i changed the extension to .fon, but i obtained no results. I then checked the hd with nav 2004 ( after having updated the virus definitons), but no vir were found. at last i checked the hd for errors and nothing was found. I'm really in trouble....

thanks a lot.

cheers,
mad_alfred

[mad_alfred]

hi all!

I'm having serius trouble with my winxp...
First of all its a dual booting system ( a 40Gb hd IDE- which is the one i'm using now and currently logged in as windows xp- and another 80Gb HD allways with windows xp but sata.... cables are fine! it worked fine 'till 2hours ago!!) and in second place the rest of the cfg is below in green as member signature.
The problem is that windows, on the sata drive won't boot at all! at prompt (where i can choose which os to boot works fine...i checked boot.ini and looks perfect...) no problems, but when i choose to load windows on the sata hd a screen appeares telling me that the system hasn't been properely loaded last time and I can choose if i want to boot in windows normally or try the last working configuration ecc... but if i choose to load win normally a black screen would appear whith nothing else happening and if i press any button the system would reboot. If i try to load the last working configuration an error message would tell me that some windows/system/vga850.fon file is missing or is damaged. I checked in Microsofts kb and it said it is a font problem, but it only affects windows 98. So i tryed to copy the .fon file from the windows xp install disk and i only found "vga850.fo_" so i copyed it to the windows/system/ folder and nothing changed, then i changed the extension to .fon, but i obtained no results. I then checked the hd with nav 2004 ( after having updated the virus definitons), but no vir were found. at last i checked the hd for errors and nothing was found. I'm really in trouble....

thanks a lot.

cheers,
mad_alfred

I can see that the forum does not display signatures anymore... well, then my configuration shoud be:
mobo: asus p4p800
ram: 512 dual channel pc2700
cpu: p4 northwood 2.0ghz @ 2.8Ghz
hd1: 40GB IDE ( maxtor)
hd2: 80GB SATA (maxtor)
cdr: arter wrr4848
Graphics: 3d prophet 9800Pro
sound: terratec 5.1

thats all.

[Yawgm0th]

Tre renaming the font file from vga850.fo_ to vga850.fon. Windows can't do a damn thing with a file that has a similar name.

[mad_alfred]

i know that nothing would have changed renaming that file, but i just wanted to try and check if something would happen! ( sounds stupid, but its one of the most common things that happen when you start having trouble with yr system!)

any other suggestions?

p.s. thanks 4 the quick response :D

[Yawgm0th]

I'm not sure if you're understanding me.... If you can't find the file on you 98CD, copy the one from your XP installation into the correct directory, but rename it so it is the correct file. After doing that, what error message does it give you, if any?

Also, post the contents of C:\boot.ini (open it with Notepad). You will need to enable viewing of hidden and system files in Control Panel\Folder Option to see it.

[mad_alfred]

well... maybe you misunderstood what i wrote before: ...So i tryed to copy the .fon file from the windows xp install disk and i only found "vga850.fo_" so i copyed it to the windows/system/ folder and nothing changed, then i changed the extension to .fon, but i obtained no results....
I did that already but it didn't work!! :(

and there's nothing to do with windows 98... i only wrote that in MS KB it was written that in windows 98 a similar error could appear because of this darn vga850 missing....BUT i checked in the windows/system folder of the working windows xp os ( the one on the 40GB HD) and the file isn't there although the system works properely... I've also checked the whole harddrive for that specific file and it wouldn't find it!! It means that my problem doesn't specifically regard the missing of this vga850 file...

anyway my boot.ini file is like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional SATA" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional IDE" /fastdetect

thanks again,
mad_alfred :)

[Yawgm0th]

I did misunderstand you before... Why do you dual boot Windows XP with Windows XP? :confused:
Unless you're on an AMD 64 system with both 64-bit and 32-bit versions, I see no reason to...

In any case, if replacing that file doesn't help at all, I don't know that there's much you can do. Looks like it's time for a reinstall, I guess. :2cents:

[mad_alfred]

well... actually i dual boot so that if 1 os fails or has got an error i can try to fix it or backup data and especially continue working with my machine in case of problems like this one.

it's that this must be already the 4 or 5 time i format this month... i'm tired of having to reinstall the whole crap of programs again and again....!!

anyway thanks for the help!! :)

mad_alfred

p.s. if somebody else has got any solutions.... please answere! i shall format within 2-3 days if no fix will be available.

[Yawgm0th]

Were your other formats becuase of different problem?

You might need new SATA drivers if stuff like this happens randomly.

[bigjackusa]

The same file should be on your other drive, in the same location. Try dragging and copying to the correct location on the problem drive.

[mad_alfred]

And so now I'm running winXP on my sata drive without having reinstalled windows!!!

I basically did the most simple thing ever.... I copyed the whole windows folder from the IDE drive to the SATA drive and then fixed all the errors and stuff with NU WinDoctor.... 212 problems!!! all fixed...

really happy now!! thanks again for the support!! :D

mad_alfred

[Golikell]

Hey dudes,
Sorry, I don't want to be rude, but simply copying and renaming WILL NOT WORK!!!! The reason is simple: it is a compressed file and needs to be expanded with the expand command!

[01001101]

4 -5 formats in just one month? holy ****...
I think you need to take a close look at your computing practices. No one should ever have to format that often. Hell, formating more than once a year can be exsessive under normal conditions. Why do so many people think it's perfectly acceptable to format every time there is the slightest of problems? It doesn't take any skill to stick in a CD and format/reinstall an OS. If you want to get anywhere in the world of computers you've got to learn to troubleshoot. Formating every time there is a hiccup is such a novice thing to do.

Ok, I'm done with my little rant.

[mad_alfred]

yeah... I know... there's still a lot to learn :oops: ....

anyway,
thanks for the tip :thumb: !!

mad_alfred

[Foucreault]

Re: windows booting problem

At the cmd prompt.

Get to the location of file vga850.fo_
Type expand vga850.fo_ c:\windows\system\vga850.fon


Pass a very nice day.