\WINDOWS\system32\c_437.nls and no XP install CD: now what?

[findrivr]

Of course I haven't backed up...ever.

Yes, I bought it from an Ebayer and all I got was a set of four T41 recovery CDs; tried to run the first, but it said it was ready to format the HD, so I backed out of it.

Yes, I don't have an XP install CD or the IBM Rapid Restore [ I was going to load it, but the support help file specifically omitted the T41 as being supported, so I thought I'd just install "Roxio 'Go Back" sometime down the road. I know, it can really slow a system down, but its always been successful at reverting to the last functional config. I also tried going to F8 and trying to revert to a last config- no luck.
Well, thats where I'm at without a paddle-
I've got about 30gb of weddding video on the HD [still in AVI format which I never got around to burning to a DVD [or buying the DVD burner or burning s/w, etc, etc.] which would substantially effect my disposition if I were to lose that data.

Anyone with an XP jump starter or lifering?

Thanks,
Patrick

[RealBlackStuff]

You have several options actually.
First thing to do is take the hard disk out of the laptop (see instructions in the T41 Hardware Maintenance Manual, freely downloadable).

Then either get:
- a 2.5"-to-3.5" IDE-adapter, to which you attach the HD, then attach it to a free IDE-port in a regular PC , (with the HD-jumper set to Slave if needed). Boot that up. You should see your T41-HD as an extra hard disk to the PC and you could now fetch all your data off it.

- a 2.5" USB hard disk case. Insert the harddisk in there, attach the USB cable to it, and plug it into another PC's USB-port. You may need to use a second USB-port to get enough 'juice' to make it go (those cases come with a USB Y-splitter). It's now also an added hard disk, same as above.

After you have recovered your precious personal data, we'll worry about getting the T41 back up and running.
Good luck.

[tyanlion]

I didn't really read your post but i am guessing your windows is broke so you can't access the info in your hd.

Here are some tips.

There is a bootdisk that runs windows from a cd on your "friendly websites" ahem ahem. yeah you get the picture it.... boots from your cd drive and access the hard disk and you can copy and paste. Alternatively(the legal way) you can download a copy of a live linux distribution suse or gentoo ( just ask one of the linux boys here) and run linux from the cd drive and copy the stuff you need into a fat 32 hard drive.( i think some linux distributions have native ntfs write capability ask our boys first i been out of the linux scene for a long time)both ways you can burn the videos into a cd provided you have an extra cd rom drive

Or if you are really smart .... and you have 2 partitions in the hard drive. you can use the above methods to move your info out of partition 2(d:) and leave d: empty. format it and install an operating system in d: so you will have access to the hd and doing stuff will be a lot more easier. (download xp from your friendly websites or from microsofts own website hint "windows sever 2003")

[findrivr]

That's sort of what I had planned a while back, RealBlack. I just ordered a USB enclosure and I do have another pc I can read the drive from. The other pc also has Acronis TrueImage v9, so I guess I can back that entire HD [HPA, Programs, drivers and data] to my big shared network drive, albeit a 5 or 6 hour wireless session.

I had actually planned on upgrading the T41 fr 40gb to 80 or 100gb HD and thats why the USB enclosure is now a day or two away. Had I already had the replacement HD, this would have been done already. I guess there's still no excuse for letting things get to this point, given that all I had to do was invoke TrueImage and let it do the full backup overnight.

As far as the XP fix, well, as I said in the first post, I do have the set of four 'T41 Recovery' CDs supplied by the previous owner; don't know where he got the data from, but he burned them himself and hand labeled the set. I did try running the first one and it did boot the dos gui and stated it was ready to install an IBM Win XP and that it was ready to format the HDD. Of course, that's when I bailed out.
I didn't have this HD partitioned Tyanlion, so the last option is out and I guess I can get an XP boot cd almost anywhere, but just because it boots once, we still have to update/correct the ...437.nls file, the way I see it.
At your convenience, let me know what you know.
Patrick

[spt60]

Start - Run - cmd - sfc /scannow
(this assumed you still have the I386 folder on your pc:)

Good luck!

[jdhurst]

The set of recovery CD's for a T41 is at least six in number (and at most seven). I can't recall at this moment. In any event, four won't cut it, so don't even try. Try to fix what you have with the instructions already provided in this thread. ... JD Hurst

[Stargate199]

If you need to get the data off, a simple way involves a USB flash drive and a Linux Live CD. Simply download and burn to a disk a Linux distribution. I recommend Knoppix, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu for this. Once you have booted linux. insert you USB drive and copy your files over to it. Some tweaking my be involved to get this to work correctly, but I have done this with out any problems.

[RealBlackStuff]

You'd need the mother of all flash drives to transfer 30BG of data over!
Those are supposedly videos, which probably would not even fit on a USB-stick!

[jdhurst]

If push comes to shove, build your own Linux run-time CD or a Bart PE Windows run-time CD and add proper network support for your ThinkPad. Then you can hook it up to a network (even a home network), start it with the live CD, start the network, and then copy your files to another machine. I have done this (I prefer the Bart PE Windows CD) and copied any number and size of files from a defective installation to another machine.
... JD Hurst

[findrivr]

I may have mis-stated; the 'USB drive' is a new USB enclosure for an 80-100gb replacement/upgrade HD which hasn't been purchased yet. The USB housing or enclosure itself is what's been ordered and is on the way. That part was a no-brainer; I was still researching which of the Seagate Momentus 5400s to go with ,the 80 or 100gb, when XP stopped booting.

When the USB enclosure arrives, the old 40gb will be backed [problem copy of XP and all] via the USB enclosure, in order to save all data, programs, drivers etc. to my home network drive. This will be done using another pc I have with TrueImage V9 on it.
Now place old 40gb back in T41 and try fixing that copy of XP so it will boot. If it boots, overwrite the non-booting copy on the network drive with this 'repaired' backup. Place new drive in USB enclosure, using TrueImage and the 2nd pc, make clone of 'repaired' back-up 40gb fr/network drive to new 80 or 100gb, replace 40gb in T41 with newly cloned 80 or 100gb.
Hopefully, never to revisit this topic again and having learned to do regular backups to the network drive, thereby always having the last functional system to revert to.
At least I think that's how to rectify it.

Of course, I still need to fix my XP- \WINDOWS\system32\c_437.nls problem, don't I?

Comment or corrections anyone?
Thanks,
Patrick

[RealBlackStuff]

Borrow someone's XP CD (must be same type as yours, i.e. Home or Pro, and most likely OEM).

1. Boot your computer from your Windows CD.
2. Select 'R' for the recovery console and log on as administrator.
3. At the command prompt type the following:

EXPAND -R D:\I386\c_437.nl_ C:\WINDOWS\system32\c_437.nls

4. Select yes when you're prompted to overwrite the existing file.
5. Reboot the computer.
You may need to do the same for c_1252.nls

[tyanlion]

Real black's answer might be the most efficient solution. the xp boot cd i am talking about is having the entire operating system on a cd. you run programs from your ram i am pretty sure its not something everyone has. Just imagine that you don't have a hard drive and you could run windows in its full glory on a cd rom. btw have you run scan disk. wait don't do that before you try black's method. scan disk can also destroy your hd if your not careful

[findrivr]

Well Realblack, before trying your fix to XP, I had mentioned that I would try backing the HD, via another PC, using a USB enclosure for that HD and Acronis TrueImage 9.0.
Well, I loaded up the HD into the enclosure and plugged into my good PC via the USB and away we go. The PC read my T41 HD as F:. It looked good, so I invoked TrueImage to backup F: to my shared network drive [hereinafter ref'd to as MAX] here at home. After creating the target folder on MAX, setting compression parameters to normal, I issued the 'Proceed' command to back entire disk F:, all 33.8gb of the 40gb unit.
I knew it would take an extra long time since MAX is accessed via our home wireless LAN. It reported it would take 7 hours initially, but then 'progress status' indicated 5 hours inside of about 15 minutes. Well, OK, I thought, but probably still many hours.
3.5 hrs later, TrueImage stopped the b/u and posted 2 messages in the log viewer:
"Operation with partition F: was terminated.
Details: Read error (0x70003)"
and
"Operation has completed with errors."
Looking in the target location for what would otherwise be a .tib [TrueImage Backup Archive file], I get '0 objects', as in nothing. Apparently the message "Operation has completed with errors" means it wouldn't or couldn't create the archive because of the errors, so it aborted and 'wrote' nothing. I don't know if that's because of the corrupt copy of XP on the disk or user error on my part as far as naming the destination [this part seems a 'no-brainer' in that TrueImage appends a 'MyBackUp' name to your seleted destination folder, or you can overwrite with your own, which I did] or even due to the WLAN here at home?
Anyway, the next thing I tried was just an entire Windows Explorer 'Copy to Folder' of the entire contents of F: [25 objects, 33.8gb] to a folder I created on MAX. I figured this would also take an inordinately long time due to the WLAN 'conduit' we're using, but OK, I'll be back in a few hours. That resulted in an intermediate 'palette message' about not being able to complete the copying due to the 'destination being to deep'?? Not sure if that is referring to the difficulty of sending large files to a folder too deeply nested within that directory, or what?
Now, the Win Explorer 'Copy to Folder' did take the first 12 files [10gb] of the folder with the video files [total 23 files of 18gb] and stopped with the above palette message, but then aborted the operation on its own. I can't decide if I want to just take the remainder of files it didn't 'Copy to Folder' and just manually select those to 'Copy to Folder'; then just go manually, folder by folder with 'Copy to Folder' to MAX. I expect that this way, I'll at least have the 'data' on MAX, and probably all the other o/s, system and program files, but without the functionality of being able to use the 'one-operation' mode of restoring as an entire disk drive archive in TrueImage.
What are your thoughts, RealBlack, or anyone?

At this time I'm trying another TrueImage b/u, but this time I just selected the destination folder and let TI name the archive within, 'MyBackUp'; seems silly, but I thought I'd try anyway.

[findrivr]

Update: No change; same error message.

Back to just Win Explorer 'Copy to Folder'; I guess I'll at least have all the data.
Grrrrr....
...must be the HD or...the WLAN?

[RealBlackStuff]

Your HD may have bad sectors, which can be a stumbling block for any copying.
Using CHKDSK will not always find all errors, and if Windows does not boot, you can't use that anyway.
I have used 'HDD Regenerator' successfully on a number of disks, to revive any bad sectors. The program costs about $60.- but is worth every penny!
http://www.dposoft.net/

Since you have access to your HD from that PC, why don't you just copy over those videos and other personal stuff manually?
Then delete those files from the HD to make some badly needed space.
You could try another Acronis backup of the now smaller amount of data, or forget about it and wipe/reinstall from scratch.

PS: why get frustrated by a slow wireless connection? Get a piece of CAT5 cable and hardwire your setup until you are 'done'.

[findrivr]

Yes, I would probably conclude the same, RealBlack. The disk will eventually be replaced by a 80 or 100gb; I am copying manually to MAX [the network drive].
You're right, I could just hardwire and speed things up. However, I probably need to disable the current connection to the WLAN, and not sure if the single USB port left on MAX [the Network Drive] would do the trick; the other is occupied by a network printer.
The WLAN is connected to MAX via their ethernet ports. Don't know if the other USB port can be used for 'writing' to MAX. If I can leave the T41 HD 'USB'd' to the PC, and simultaneously connect to MAX via the other available USB port on each, I'm done. But, I'm not sure if that will work.
I agree, after copying all the data, I'll delete it from the T41 HD, then try another b/u to MAX for just the o/s, drivers & programs.

If I've mis-interpreted, comment or suggest at your earliest.
Thanks,
Patrick

[RealBlackStuff]

If I understand your setup correctly, you could use a router, hook up the PC and the MAX (both hard wired) to one of it's LAN-ports and you'd have the same setup, only now a lot faster. Should not take you more than 2 minutes to hook that up.
Afterwards you could reconnect the way you were.

[findrivr]

Well, I've copied all the drive over to MAX [network shared drive] except for one file; no matter what, I keep getting the Windows message the "operation can't be completed; the path is too deep."
Never have seen that one; the stubborn file is one of about 12 .avi's. It is not quite 2gb and whats weird is that the other 11 vary from 100mb to 3.2gb and 'wrote' over wirelessly without a problem.
I'm going to try the hardwire in a while; I'll post results here tomorrow.
Thanks,
Patrick

[findrivr]

I just had another thought; I tried copying the 2gb .avi file from the 'tethered T41 drive direct to the PC I'm reading it from and the same result: ".....the path is to deep".
I can open the file from it's source on the T41 drive and play it with Realplayer- but it does hang up occasionally,and sometimes it plays thru w/out a problem. I think the processor and available HD space may be contributing to the problem of not being able to play smoothly or 'write' completely.
Another difference I noticed from all the other .avi's is that this one doesn't have an archive check box showing under file properties. I tried to compress it using 'advanced' tab utilities, but it came up with an error message to the effect that it also couldn't complete the process and just shut down. I think it's the file- there are a lot of edits in that 9 minutes of video.
So, I might just take the whole HD to work and see if the IT staff can 'save' that entire directory to a DVD.

[RealBlackStuff]

While that HD is connected to your PC, perhaps you need to do a defrag, the file might be scattered all over the place.
You can also try copying it on the same laptop-HD from its original path to the root of the HD.

The maximum length of the combined system and user-defined path variables is 1,023 characters not including the “path=” portion. The system path is limited to a maximum path length of 1,023 characters in Windows 2000, in Microsoft Windows XP, and in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. The user-defined path is limited to a maximum of 511 characters. However, the user-defined path is also limited to 1,023 characters minus the number of characters in the system path. If the system path is 1023 characters, the system path will consume the total allocated environment space that is available. This behavior causes the user-defined path to truncate or not appear at all.

Just found this (applies only if your data is in a shared folder):
Check the permissions.
Right click on the shared folder and look for a tab named DFS. Distributed File Sysytem is a way making shared folders in different locations appear as though they were on the same server. On the DFS tab, you will see the real location of this folder. Try copy and paste that path into your Start - Run command.

And check this:
http://www.chicagotech.net/winissues/pathtoolong.htm