M$ Help

[some-guy]

After a series of forced windows shutdowns(too lazy to wait :p) my windows install won't start. I get the dreaded mug.sys freeze (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/31874/?o=540)! Tried unplugging everything, doesn't help, so I'm thinking of somehow defragging it from linux(even though it is ntfs), can anyone give any advice?

[Soaa]

Can't blame Winblows in this case. ;)

Thing with Windows is that once is screws up bad, you can't go back. A reformat is really all that can fix it at this point. Just do the usual: backup your stuff in a separate partition using Linux, then wipe Windows.

[some-guy]

backing up won't even work, mounting it doesn't work, I guess I have to try repairing it...

[nawcom]

Uggh. this reminds me of when i did laptop support at a Business School in a Major University.

I don't feel like troubleshooting your issue in a compiz-fusion forum, but I will make a suggestion when you do a fresh install.

After you have the OS installed, all the main software installed that you know you need on there - clone that damn partition! I use Acronis TrueImage; they know how to really compress those partition/disk clones - the backup was less than 50% of the actual partition size (20GB->7GB, I burned it onto a DL-DVDR) There's of course Norton Ghost, I'm sure there are more.
"But what about GPL cloning/backing up software?" you might ask.
http://www.mondorescue.org/ - I haven't tested out Mondo, but I know it supports NTFS - I'm not sure if it can compress the data pretty well or not; you'll have to read in to that. But anyways, I still highly suggest keeping an image of windows backed up, for when it really fucks up, you can always take it back to that original state that is oh-so-perfect.

[nawcom]

if you know that your issue has to do with logical data locations (common thing with NTFS is a horribly corrupt MFT) - and it just has to do with locating important files like mup.sys, hence it not booting, I usually suggest using a live windows cd like BartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ to see what files are actually readable. you can then use data recovery programs from within bartpe to get the files you need - and if the entire MFT is screwed up, there are a ton of different programs to use so you can extract the files you need.

One thing I would always do to a hard drive that just went through a logical data stroke is have it do a quickcheck through spinrite http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm just to make sure all sectors are in top gear. Figuring out that it is a hardware issue is usually pretty obvious - it reports disk read errors in the logs/M$ event viewer or whatever other software you have read the hard disk.

I swear, you'll find it amazing how many people think that the solution for fixing corrupt sectors on a hard drive is to "re-install windows" or "repair windows"

*sighs*

I've drank quite a few bottles of bawls (http://www.bawls.com) tonight, so i apologize if i ranted too much.

http://static.zoovy.com/img/weknowbest/W145-H145-Bffffff/B/bawls_2up1.jpg

[some-guy]

forgot to mention that I fixed it...
booted the install disk into rescue mode and ran chkdsk
fixed...