[lester2401]

Yesterday my wife had a fit on her laptop and beat seven bells of crap out of it. When she cooled down and tried to turn it back on windows reported that some file like ntrl (something like that) was missing.

After a quick search with google I managed to fix that.

But now windows wont go past the os select screen. When I put the xp cd in the drive and goto the install windows there is no option to repair a previous instalation.

I've tried some of the tools on Hirens boot cd but was not sure which ones would help.

Any help you guys can give would be great and once I've fixed it Im going to kill my better half.

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Is this how you looked at repairing

You can use this guide to repair XP

Possibly, you will need to press the power button and keep tapping the delete key, (possibly F2) until the PC enters set up. Change the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, press F10 then press enter, load the XP CD then type Y then press enter, as it reboots, look for press any key to load from CD, press enter

You will need your XP product key to complete this

The XP Product Key is a 25 character alpha numerical code, which does not include the sequence OEM

If you have audio / video files which are subject to DRM you should check with the provider for known issues with performing an XP repair install

Click this to view the XP Repair Install Guide

Windows XP repair feature won't delete your data, installed programs, personal information, or settings. It just repairs the operating system

The XP repair install will look and run as a normal install, however, you must not see a request to format the drive

After running XP Repair you will need to install all Windows Updates

Microsoft Update

[Retired Tech]

Is this how you looked at repairing

You can use this guide to repair XP

Possibly, you will need to press the power button and keep tapping the delete key, (possibly F2) until the PC enters set up. Change the boot order to CD ROM Drive then hard drive, press F10 then press enter, load the XP CD then type Y then press enter, as it reboots, look for press any key to load from CD, press enter

You will need your XP product key to complete this

The XP Product Key is a 25 character alpha numerical code, which does not include the sequence OEM

If you have audio / video files which are subject to DRM you should check with the provider for known issues with performing an XP repair install

Click this to view the XP Repair Install Guide

Windows XP repair feature won't delete your data, installed programs, personal information, or settings. It just repairs the operating system

The XP repair install will look and run as a normal install, however, you must not see a request to format the drive

After running XP Repair you will need to install all Windows Updates

Microsoft Update

[lester2401]

Hi thanks for the quick reply but the link CLICK THIS TO VIEW THE XP REPAIR INSTALL GUIDE is no good because when I get to the part of repair the selected xp instalation their is no R.

Thanks again

[Retired Tech]

Do you get the same with this

Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.
Note:Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so.

When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.

Note:If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

When you are prompted to do so, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.

At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following then press Enter:

chkdsk /r

Allow this to run UNDISTURBED until completed

[lester2401]

Im afraid I've done that and still no joy

[Retired Tech]

Do you know how much free space is on the drive

[lester2401]

About 20gig free

[Retired Tech]

Parallel Reinstall

If Windows® XP Setup cannot detect your existing installation of Windows® XP, you may be able to install Windows® XP to a different folder and retrieve personal files

You will have got to one of the following prompts

To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows® press Esc

Windows XP Professional Setup

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer

Use the UP or DOWN keys to select an item in the list

To setup XP on the selected item, press Enter
To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C
To delete the selected partition, press D
7327Mb Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

C: Partition1 [NTFS] 7319Mb [4887Mb free]



Press Esc if necessary to get to the second screen.
At this screen, look for the entry for C:

(Example above is C: Partition1 [NTFS] 7319Mb [4887Mb free])

If you do have an entry, and free space is reporting over 1500MB then you may be able to install Windows® XP in parallel. Continue below.

Move the highlight with the arrow keys on the keyboard to the C: partition, then press Enter

Windows® will now ask you to confirm the install. If you are satisfied with your decision then press C.

Now you will be asked if you wish to format the drive, select 'Leave the current file system intact (no changes)' and press Enter.

Windows® will now warn you that the Windows® directory already has an operating system, press ESC to select a different folder.

You will now be asked to change the folder that Windows® installs into. You can change this to whatever you want, a good example is \WINXP. Then press Enter.

Windows® Setup will now continue, and will install Windows®. Follow the prompts

Once Windows® has been reinstalled, you should have a basic copy of Windows®, and some drivers may not be correctly installed. (The most obvious of these may be the graphics driver if your desktop icons look very large)

However at this stage you now have 2 copies of Windows® on your computer which will be taking up unnecessary space, and you should use the current installation to backup personal data and files.

[lester2401]

At the moment a secound copy of xp on the laptop is not a road I want togo down simply because of the ammount of data that has to be backed up.

I will keep your idea in mind but if I could get away with not doing that it would be great.

[Retired Tech]

You would copy data from the existing install to the new install

The data will be located in the Documents and Settings folder (C:\Documents and Settings) under your old user account name...so when you set up the new installation, give yourself a slightly different user account name.