I'm trying to help a friend fix his box. The computer is running Win XP Pro and everytime the computer boots, (After the windows splash screen), the computer goes into setup mode. (Like when you re-install your OS from scratch - "39 minutes to etc.") This happed sometime if the computer crashes during the install phase.

Anyway, the computer wants the Win XP Pro CD so that it can copy files some system files, so I put the disk in and it started to copy the files. Then with in 30 seconds it errors out and prompts for a restart. After the restart it does everything over again!

Is there a software "toggle" that can be turned so that the system will boot correctly?

I have tried every possible way of booting, including safe mode, but it did not help. I pulled the drive and put it in another computer as a secondary drive to run "scandisk" on it. No luck!

Any Good Ideas?

I don't see any way around a repair installation

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Repair-Windows-XP-t138.html

Other that needing to do all my WIN XP Pro Updates over again, it worked wonderfully!!

Much Thanks!!

thanks for letting us know