Windows XP startup issues and the need for Windows Data Recovery

BIOS (Basic Input/output System) are a critical component of a Windows operating system. It is the first code to be executed when you start your Windows-based PC. It checks system hardware, ports etc. and then loads MBR (Master Boot Record) into the memory. MBR searches the active partition on your primary hard disk and passes control to that PBR (Partition Boot Record). Now, the PBR loads various system-specific boot files. These files are responsible for initializing and loading the rest of the OS. If any of these files gets corrupt, the system would become unbootable. As a consequence, you will lose all the precious data saved in your system. To overcome the problem, you need to go for Windows recovery through a reliable third-party utility. 

For instance, when you start your Windows XP-based system, you may come across anyone of the following cases:

·         The Start button or task-bar becomes invisible.

·         A blue or black screen appears and the computer stops responding.

Cause:

One of the following reasons may be responsible for the above behavior-

·         You have enabled 'Auto-hide the taskbar' option in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.

·         Some settings of your user account may be corrupt.

·         The 'Explorer.exe' fails to load during startup.

·         Operating system boot files are damaged.

These circumstances would prevent you from accessing the valuable information stored in your system. To recover Windows files, you may use an updated backup. However, if the backup is unavailable, follow the below mentioned resolution steps

Resolution:

These steps may help you solve the problem-

·         Disable the auto-hide option: In the 'Taskbar and Start Menu Properties' dialog box, under the 'Taskbar' tab, disable the 'Auto-hide the taskbar' option.  

·         Log on as a different user: Log in to your system using a different user account. If you do not encounter any problems, create a new account. Now apply the settings of the old user account to this account.

·         Start computer in Safe Mode: If 'Explorer.exe' file fails to load, boot the system using the 'Safe Mode with Networking' option. Now, scan your PC using an anti-virus utility and install all the essential updates on your system by running Windows Update.

·         Repair Windows XP: Repair Windows XP installation using the Windows XP bootable disc. Choose to repair the existing installation. All the Windows files will be replaced.

If the problem still persists, you should take help of efficient Windows recovery software. This software is capable of safely recovering all types of user data files in any situation of data loss.

Cloning and Data Loss Situations in Windows Hard Drive

The computer hard drives store data and programs together and thus there is a need to switch over a faster and larger capacity drive. Now you need to reinstall the operating system and all the programs on the new drive. This may also lead to a severe data loss situation and require Windows Data Recovery. To tackle such situations, you can create a mirror copy of your hard drive that could easily restore all of your documents, files, data, programs and even operating system. This method is known as Disk Cloning.

The Disk Cloning is process of replicating all the contents of one hard drive to another computer hard drive or image file. Generally, the contents of first hard drive are written to image file as intermediate step, and second disk is loaded with contents of image. The process is very helpful specifically when moving to large hard drives. The cloning is made easy through Disk Cloning software.

The hard drive cloning tool is used for :

• Hard disk upgrade: You can use such applications to upgrade to new or larger capacity hard drive. It prevents data loss and need of Windows Data Recovery Software.

• Provisioning new systems: Provisioning with the standard set of software so that you can go away with complete application suite and doesn't need to waste time in installing individual programs.

• Complete system backup: Using hard drive cloning applications, you can create a comprehensive and full backup of your operating system, data and all the installed application software.

• System recovery: Using the disk clone software you can create rescue disk that is used to restore your computer to its original settings after operating system malfunction. This is basically used for operating system recovery.

The disk cloning software have to be able to access even the protected operating system resources on source drive. The system must be in a consistent and working state while the software read the drive and create clone image of it. If you have any operating system or applications installed on the destination disk while cloning, the software will overwrite everything and create a fresh copy of all the data.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most effective and advanced tool to easily clone your hard drive. It works well with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000. It creates clone of all FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system partitions of your Windows hard drive.

Lets rectify error : “DISK READ ERROR OCCURED”

It happens some times that at the time of up gradation the hard drive is automatically formatted with FAT (File Allocation Table) file system and all the data stored on the hard drive gets lost.

This situation is general in dual-boot system. This behavior of Microsoft Windows makes all your data inaccessible and can cause serious data loss. Now you are required to scan the affected hard drive and opt for an effective Windows Data Recovery to retrieve lost data from Windows hard drive.

In a practical situation, if you've NT-based version of Microsoft Windows installed on first primary partition that is formatted as NTFS (New Technology File System), and you select to format the partition as NTFS file system during setup to begin with clean partition, Windows setup process will format the drive as FAT, copy files from CD and try to reboot system in GUI mode to continue installation. In such situations, your system would stop responding and you come across below error message:

“DISK READ ERROR occurred.”

If you run ChkDsk on affected Windows drive, you will encounter following error message:

“The media descriptor byte is invalid.
FAT copies are not the same.
Many cross linked files.
All directory entries were invalid.”

Try to repair partition doesn't sort out the problem and the installation could not be continued. In these cases, you need to find out the cause of this problem and carry out Windows Recovery by fixing it.

Root of the problem

Earlier Windows NT kernel format the partition using FAT file system and then convert the file system to NTFS on final re-boot after installation. If you reformat the boot partition using NTFS file system, setup writes 16 sector boot area on freshly formatted FAT drive after file copy operation completes.

In order to sort out such issue, Windows Data Recovery is required. This is best possible using advanced third-party applications, known as Windows Data Recovery Software. The tools work in the majority of data loss situations and allow you to perform quick and easy recovery. The have non-destructive conduct and thus do not alter original data on drive and always perform safe recovery.

VMI Automation Interface May Cause Data Loss in Microsoft Windows

In Microsoft Windows, when you run the programs that use asynchronous WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) automation interfaces, applications might unpredictably and sporadically shut down or stop responding, possibly resulting into serious data loss. This behavior of Microsoft Windows operating system cause critical situations and require Windows Data Recovery to be sorted out.

Any Windows application, which uses asynchronous Windows Management Instrumentation automation interfaces might be subject to the unpredictable behavior because of different timing issues. This problem might not be identified during the development process of application as nested events occur rarely. Some common factors like network speed, CPU (Central Processing Unit) speed, external variable and system speed could provoke this behavior and lead to improper program termination and data loss.

For instance, a garbage JScript collection could lead events of fire, resulting into an irretrievable crash and causing all script codes to stop executing. Later versions of the JScript suppresses explosive stops and shutdowns, but the WMI automation interface still fires the events improperly. Particularly, the event could be fired at random times, when all other events are being processed, simply causing data loss from Windows hard drive.

The warning signs of this bug are unpredictable as they depend upon the timing of the garbage collection and on speed at which the asynchronous operations are completed. In the real-world applications, such bug causes a number of problems, which show up so often.
Data loss is something that can not be accepted at any cost. It causes a number of problems in business continuity. At this point, if you have an update backup of your data, use it for Windows Recovery. In case if the backup is not available or its not updated, you require recovery from third party solutions.

Recovery of lost data is possible in the majority of data loss situations, until it gets overwritten. You can easily recover lost data in such situations using using third-party Windows Data Recovery Software.

The Windows Recovery applications use advanced scanning algorithms to perform methodical scan of entire hard drive and extract all of the lost data out of it. The tools are completely easy to use as they come equipped with interactive and rich graphical user interface. They do not alter original data on the drive as they have read-only and non-destructive behavior.

Damaged Boot.ini File In Microsoft Windows

If the windows operating system does not boot , you can not get access data from it. It can be a case of damaged Boot.ini file. In such situations, usually we go for some data recovery software. An advanced Windows Data Recovery software can solve all the problems.

In technical words..............

At the time of booting, the NTLDR (NT Loader) program refers to Boot.ini file to check where the files of operating syatem are stored and what options to enable as operating system keep on loading. Thus if there is any issue with Boot.ini file, it could render the Windows operating system incapable of starting properly.

When you suspect that your Windows operating system does not boot up because the Boot.ini file has been damaged, you could use special Recovery Console of Bootcfg.exe utility to sort it out and perform Windows Recovery. In order to access the Recovery Console, you must first boot your system with Windows installation CD (Compact Disk).

Use the following command to use Bootcfg.exe utility from Recovery Console:
Bootcfg /parameter

Here /parameter can be anyone of the following given:

/Add: Scans hard drive for all MS Windows installations and enables you to add a new one to Boot.ini file.

/Scan: Scans hard drive for all Microsoft Windows installations.

/List: Lists every entry in Boot.ini file.

/Default: Sets default OS as main boot entry.

/Rebuild: Re-create the Boot.ini file. You must confirm every step in it.

Although the Bootcfg.exe utility can handle of the problems with system booting. But take care that improper editing of the Boot.ini file requires hard drive formatting.

Of course, the formatting removes all the errors but it also deletes all of the data from your Windows hard drive. After this the recovery is possible with the help of Windows Data Recovery Software. Although there are so many applications available for this but the one with advanced and reliable features are still lacking.

My view..........

In my opinion Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most comprehensive application for smooth, simple and secure recovery of your precious data and being a user of this software I highly recommend it to overcome the problem.

Auto Complete Registry Corruption and Data Loss in Windows

Microsoft Internet Explorer allows you to store web addresses, URLs, username, passwords and other data from forms. It saves your time that is required for typing complete addresses. Once you type the first character of name, it will show all related names and you can select required one from the list. But in some situations, due to registry problems, this feature does not work and your face several problems. Registry corruption may also cause several other problems that possibly result into critical data loss situations and require Windows Data Recovery to be sorted out.

When you enable settings in AutoComplete Settings dialog box of Microsoft Internet Explorer in the Microsoft Windows XP based computer. However, AutoComplete feature doesn't work in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. For instance, when you attempt to enter any text in a web form that was previously used in any other form, AutoComplete feature doesn't enter text in the form automatically.

Root of the issue

This problem generally occurs if the value of FormSuggest registry entry, which is located under following registry subkey is set as 0:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel

The problem also occurs when the Windows registry gets damaged. Damaged Windows registry cause a number of problems and result into serious data loss that require Windows Recovery.

Resolution

In order to sort out this issue, you need to change the value of FormSuggest registry subkey to 1. To do so, you are required to go through below steps:

• Click Start button, select Run and then type regedit and then click OK button.

• In the Windows Registry Editor, go to the following Registry subkey and then click on it:
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel

• In details pane, double-click on FormSuggest.

• In Value data box, enter 1 and Click OK button.

Although, this method can solve your problem, but incorrect editing in registry cause serious damage to your system and cause data loss. In such situations, you need to opt for Windows Data Recovery Software to retrieve lost data.

The Windows Data Recovery applications are capable of thoroughly scanning the affected hard drive and retrieving all of the lost data from it. They are completely easy to use and do not demand sound technical skills. With read-only conduct, the tools are totally safe to use.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most comprehensive and effective solution for all data loss issues. It recovers from all Windows partitions that have FAT32, VFAT, NTFS or NTFS5 file system. The software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 RC1, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000.