Corrupted XP mode in Win7

[cameo]

I've had a wll functioning XP mode in my Win7 that suddenly stopped
working the other day when I tried to run it. The error msg said
something about some missing files and gave me an option to reinstall XP
Mode. The reinstall, unfortunately, takes a couple days because of all
the MS updates to the original install to get it up to date.

I wonder what may have caused to have those necessary XP mode files
disappear. The only thing I can imagine is that maybe the Win7 disk
cleanup or defrag caused it. Anybody here know of such possibility?
The disk cleanup has an option for system files. Could option "think" of
the XP mode files as junk and get rid off them?

 

[philo]

I've had a wll functioning XP mode in my Win7 that suddenly stopped
working the other day when I tried to run it. The error msg said
something about some missing files and gave me an option to reinstall XP
Mode. The reinstall, unfortunately, takes a couple days because of all
the MS updates to the original install to get it up to date.

I wonder what may have caused to have those necessary XP mode files
disappear. The only thing I can imagine is that maybe the Win7 disk
cleanup or defrag caused it. Anybody here know of such possibility?
The disk cleanup has an option for system files. Could option "think" of
the XP mode files as junk and get rid off them?

If it was working fine immediately prior to letting disk cleanup delete
system files ,then I'd say that's a possibility

However, the system files it's supposed to delete are merely old restore
points

 

[cameo]

If it was working fine immediately prior to letting disk cleanup delete
system files ,then I'd say that's a possibility

However, the system files it's supposed to delete are merely old restore
points

The problem is that I don't know if it worked just before the clean-up
because I only use the XP-Mode when I need to scan something with my old
Umax scanner that does not have Win7 drivers. I don't scan very often.

 

[Paul]

The problem is that I don't know if it worked just before the clean-up
because I only use the XP-Mode when I need to scan something with my old
Umax scanner that does not have Win7 drivers. I don't scan very often.

This is purely theory.

The WinXP Mode OS lives in a .vhd file. Or, it should, because
that is Microsoft's favorite format for Windows Virtual PC.

Since I keep an extensive collection of VMs in VPC2007, I would
take the VPC file from WinXP mode, and connect it to a VM
that has a CHKDSK. Then, mount the volume and run CHKDSK on it.

There is no CHKDSK (that does anything useful) in Linux, so
Linux is of no use for free. There is at least one Linux package
with some sort of CHKDSK, but it costs around $100 or so. So rather
than use that, I'd use Windows.

If you have a Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 installation (even the Windows 8.1
Preview good until Jan15), the equivalent of the "vhdmount" program
is supposed to be built into the OS. So you could mount the VHD file
right in the main OS, and do CHKDSK from there. The WinXP Mode
virtual disk, then shows up as a physical disk in Disk Management.
And you can do the usual maintenance procedures from there.

I think what happened, is some kind of damage, that the NTFS
journal wasn't able to clean up. Details might be buried in
the Event Viewer of the busted WinXP Mode OS files. Pretty
hard to get there right now for a look.

If in doubt, make a backup copy of the .vhd file, before
attempting CHKDSK on it. That way, if any pseudo-repair
attempts make things worse, you have an option.

If you cannot make a backup copy of the WinXP Mode .vhd
storage container, then the problem could be an actual
bad cluster on the physical disk. In which case, you'd check
the SMART statistics of the physical disk, to see if the
whole disk needs to be replaced.

Since I don't have WinXP Mode here, I can't even tell you
where to look for that file. Or what the file name might be.
But we know it is at least 500MB in size, probably bigger
as time passes and more Windows Updates are added. Using
the size info alone (files bigger than 500MB), you can
probably find it fairly quickly.

The WinXP Mode file should not be stored on a FAT32 partition.
As attempts to expand the file past 4GB, will cause a storage
failure, and all sorts of hell will break loose. The odds
that happened, are extremely low, as it would take meddling,
and moving the file on purpose, to break it that way. The
only person who'd attempt such a thing, is guys like me

So either search for .vhd or .vhdx or look for a file larger
than 500MB. It should be easy to find. The only way it
would be harder to find, is if it was stored in System Volume
Information. I hope they didn't do it that way.

Paul

 

[philo]

This is purely theory.

The WinXP Mode OS lives in a .vhd file. Or, it should, because
that is Microsoft's favorite format for Windows Virtual PC.

Since I keep an extensive collection of VMs in VPC2007, I would
take the VPC file from WinXP mode, and connect it to a VM
that has a CHKDSK. Then, mount the volume and run CHKDSK on it.

<snip>


Since the OP has already reinstalled, all that would have to be done at
this point is just to make a copy of the vpc file in case it gets
corrupted again.



Additional thoughts:

1) Since XP is used /only/ for occasional scanning it was hardly
necessary to install all the updates.


2) I have used obsolete scanners with newer operating systems
by extracting the needed driver files and installing manually.

 

[Paul]

<snip>


Since the OP has already reinstalled, all that would have to be done at this point is just to make a copy of the vpc file in case it gets corrupted again.



Additional thoughts:

1) Since XP is used /only/ for occasional scanning it was hardly necessary to install all the updates.


2) I have used obsolete scanners with newer operating systems
by extracting the needed driver files and installing manually.

Well, you know me

I'm naturally curious about things, and I'm really
curious in this case, as to how the thing got corrupted.

That's why I want to see if CHKDSK would fix it.
Or, if it is really trashed.

Paul

 

[philo]

Well, you know me

I'm naturally curious about things, and I'm really
curious in this case, as to how the thing got corrupted.

That's why I want to see if CHKDSK would fix it.
Or, if it is really trashed.

Paul

Yep, if it was my machine, I'd try CHKSDK too.


Of course I must have six spare scanners, so I'd probably just fish one
out that worked with the OS and not bother with the virtual install of XP