[squall2]

hey,

as you will have gathered i have a big problem. My windows XP wouldnt start up properly and froze everytime on the "starting up" screen. i booted from my win XP CD and installed a new copy of windows (thinking it will just install the boot files again etc). however, now, its hard to explain but i think i have two operating sytems installed at once. windows (both) are installed on C drive. when i click C drive it comes up with "chris" or "chris!" (first file being the old virsion of windows and chris! being the fresh copy.) all the programms i installed on the "old" windows are still there but i cant open them from the current copy of windown that im on as it says "this program has not been installed for the current user" when there is only one user...me. i think it thinks that there are two people using the same computer (one on the damaged virsion and one on the fresh copy). this means that i have to install everything again on this copy of windows??!! can anyone save me the hasstle of this or tell me what to do?

it sounds quite hard to understand but please help!

PS: i think when i installed windows again i shoyld have pressed "R" to repair and not to install a fresh copy. oops. how can i get my old files and programms on my new copy of windows.

thanks

chris.

Edited by squall2, 14 June 2006 - 10:12 AM.

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Hi squall2...

How about we see if we can repair the original installation and remove the new installation? I may save you a lot of time and trouble.

First, I'll need a little information from you. Open "My Computer" and double click the "Local Drive C:" icon. How many folders with "Windows" in the name do you see. List them here for me.

Then open Control Panel and double click on the "System" icon. Under the "Advanced" tab, in the "Startup and Recovery" section, click on the "Settings" button. In the resulting window, click on the "Edit" button. Copy/Paste the contents of the notepad window (boot.ini) here for me.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hi squall2...

How about we see if we can repair the original installation and remove the new installation? I may save you a lot of time and trouble.

First, I'll need a little information from you. Open "My Computer" and double click the "Local Drive C:" icon. How many folders with "Windows" in the name do you see. List them here for me.

Then open Control Panel and double click on the "System" icon. Under the "Advanced" tab, in the "Startup and Recovery" section, click on the "Settings" button. In the resulting window, click on the "Edit" button. Copy/Paste the contents of the notepad window (boot.ini) here for me.

wannabe1

[squall2]

hi,

there is only one folder and its called "WINDOWS"

here is what system (boot thing) said:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin

NB: i highlighted all the things in the "chris" (old windows) folder (things where like program files etc) and dragged them all across in to the new "chris!" folder. i thaught then that the new virsion of windown could find the programs it needs (as they are all dragged across from the old windows). i hope i havent done anything wrong!

[wannabe1]

The good news is...you only have one operating system installed on your machine and the boot.ini file is correct.

What happens when you try to open one of your files?

[squall2]

it says that the program has not been instaled for this user (there is no other user) it think that the old virsion of windows in another user. also it says i have to install SP2 etc again, and im sure you know how long that takes!

[wannabe1]

Can you access any of the files in the original user account? If you have to, use copy/paste to move some of the ones you dragged accross back to the original folder.

When you run a repair, it will remove all updates not on the cd, including SP2. If you don't have SP2 on your cd, download This Version and save it to disk. You can then burn it to a cd and keep it with the installation cd.

This is sounding more like a corrupted user account issue to me. See if you can run a System Restore to the first restore point after the repair completed...if there is one. Then try to open a file or application from the original user account.

[squall2]

i just clicked on "documents and settings" and these are the files:

All users
All users.WINDOWS
chris
chris!

Shouldn't there only be one "all users". also within each "all users" file there is a different start menu (if u know what i mean)