need some dos heads in the house!

[sirius]

Howdy.

My dads laptop has become corrupted. When you start it, it says the MSGINA.dll has failed to load and the only option is to restart. Theres no safe mode, last good config doesnt work, nothing.

Ive found his Gericom recovery CD version of Windows XP home sp1, and can get to the c:windows prompt from the "R" recorvery option on th windows setup.

Theres no floppy disk drive on this laptop, and I cant seem to open a USB drive .

Ive checked the system 32 folder and it seems the file is missing, or just hidden.

What I was thinking of doing is copying my "msgina.dll" off my PC onto a cd and replacing it on his laptop into the system32 folder.......

Will this work?

If so, how do i do that in the command prompt. Im terribly rusty with what to type to change directories, copy, rename, etc in the command promt mode.

Can somebody kindly list how I would get msgina.dll from a CD drive into the system 32 folder on my dads laptop?

Also, before I do that, I notice on mine that there is a hidden folder called "last good". C:\windows\lastgood\system32\msgina.dll. Would I be able to access a similar folder on my dads laptop and see if I can replace the file that way? How would I do that?

Cheers

Sirius

 

[fugjostle]

MSGina is the user interface for logging into the system. It is a hidden system file and so make sure that its not there first. You can do that from the DOS prompt using:

C:\> cd windows (to speed up the search)
C:\WINDOWS> dir msgina.dll /s/b

Assuming D:\ is the CD drive, this is the copy command:

C:\>copy d:\msgina.dll c:\windows\system32\

or to copy from the lastgood folder:

C:\>copy C:\windows\lastgood\system32\msgina.dll C:\windows\system32\

I've seen this type of thing happen under three conditions:- 1. Virus Infection, 2. Using a 3rd party GINA and 3. When multiple OSes are installed (for example, you have a C:\WINDOWS and C:\WINNT).

Good luck,
f.

 

[sirius]

Thanks bud, but Ive had no luck

C:\> cd windows (to speed up the search)
C:\WINDOWS> dir msgina.dll /s/b

gives me: "The parameter is not valid".

:\>copy C:\windows\lastgood\system32\msgina.dll C:\windows\system32\

Gives me "The system cannot find the file specified".

Plus, I cant eject the startup recovery CD from the drive, it wont allow me whilst its in the recover mode/dos style black screen bit. Therefore I cannot put in my CD Ive just made with the dll on it.



Sirius

 

[fugjostle]

Thanks bud, but Ive had no luck

C:\> cd windows (to speed up the search)
C:\WINDOWS> dir msgina.dll /s/b

gives me: "The parameter is not valid".

try it again but don't use the /b option, if you get the same message again then cd to the c:\windows\system32 folder and just do:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32> dir msgina.dll

or just do DIR on its own and look through the output manually.

As to the inability to copy the file to disk.... I would suggest copying the contents of the system disk to your system and adding a new directory to the structure for files you need and then reburning the CD. (i.e. it contains the files you want to copy over so you don't need to eject it).

Alternatively, all CD drives have a manual eject button that you can use with a paper clip. Use that because the simple commands like DIR, COPY etc should have been copied to memory and the system CD won't be needed.

Just a few ideas to get you started.

 

[sirius]

C:\windows\system 32>dir msgina.dll
The volume in drive c has no label
The volume serial no. is 2066-xxxx

Directory of c:windows\system32\msgina.dll

No matching files were found

C:\windows\system32>

:S :| .

Now what?

The CD drive is like a fanny lol, theres no drawer just a velvet lined slot to slip it in. Theres no pin to eject a cd.

How do I copy the disc image and add files to it so that it remains a "bootable" CDrom? .

I gather, that for whatever reason, the whole gina file is missing? If so, would you suggst that replacing it by any means possible would do the trick?/

Unfortunately my dad tends to use Microsoft default locations, so having to reinstall windows over the top is going to be VERY bad news as it will result in a lot of lost data thats not backed up (as usually is the case).

Sometimes I could yank bill gate's stomach out through his mouth, I really could.

Sirius.

 

[sirius]

Spent ALL F@KING day on this c'nt so far . I dont want to be beaten!

heres some other advise Ive found thoughout the 100's of webpages Ive seen today:

Try expanding the msgina.dll file from the install CD to the
C:\Windows\System32 directory by using the Recovery Console.

Once you have booted into the Recovery Console, at the command prompt, key in:
EXPAND X:\I386\MSGINA.DL_ C:\Windows\System32
(replace the X with the actual drive letter designation for your CDROM drive)
Once you have keyed in the command above, hit ENTER.

To exit the Recovery Console and restart your computer, at the command
prompt, key in:
EXIT
and hit ENTER

It did something, it completed as far as I know, but alas, its just the same.

** the file is now in the system32 folder 994304 bytes. **

However when booting up into windows, it still just says "failed to load msgina.dll, windows cannot start, contact your system administrator, please restart >RESTART<" Thats it. No safe mode, no last good config, nothing.

Sirius

 

[sirius]

update:

Its totally fubar'd

Nothings worked.

me and my brother are going to look on the web to try and find a way of reinstalling windows without loosing all the data and settings (if thats possible) and try that.

Otherwise its going to be a format, reinstall and take it to some specialist hard drive recovery place to see what can be resurected. :|

F'king microsoft update that did it. For gods sake bill, sort it out! its not like you havent the money.......

Sirius

 

[doolz]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/security/msgina.mspx
instructions on recovery


http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994#XSLTH3135121122120121120120
ul have to use floppys 6 of them for an xp bootdisk

u can get cheap usb floppy drives these days
http://www.scan.co.uk/search/search.asp?criteria=usb+floppy


hope this helps

 

[doolz]

update:

Its totally fubar'd

Nothings worked.

me and my brother are going to look on the web to try and find a way of reinstalling windows without loosing all the data and settings (if thats possible) and try that.

Otherwise its going to be a format, reinstall and take it to some specialist hard drive recovery place to see what can be resurected. :|

F'king microsoft update that did it. For gods sake bill, sort it out! its not like you havent the money.......

Sirius

u can rescue teh data very easily as long as you have access to a desktop pc
u can get get a cheap cable that lets you connect a laptop hard drive to an IDE slot on any desktop pc


hope this helps

 

[sirius]

wish Id have seen this earlier

Sirius.