[techie4fun]

So yesterday I was updating drivers for my video card.. and once I got the software installed, I immediately got a blue screen error. I don't remember the details, but I do know that after I rebooted my computer, my computer would sit at 'windows is starting up' for like 45 seconds before my user accounts would pop up on screen, and right before they would pop up you would hear a beep. So I logged into one of my accounts and my start-menu was missing. So to make a longs story short, I thought for some reason that my ATI software driver stuff was messing up my computer, so I thought about attempting to do a repair install of XP to see if I could get the stuff fixed. We'll, I attempted and right when the setup had finished copying files from my XP CD, I got a message saying: Setup cannot set the required Windows XP configuration information. This indicates an internal setup error. Contact your system adminstrator "but I am the system administrator " So I did a search online and found a topic describing this issue and people are saying that I can't perform a repair installation of XP using my origional XP CD if the OS on my hard drive is newever than the CD. I DO NOT want to reformat the hard drive because I have files that I haven't backed up yet, but I am stumped because I don't know what to do. How can I get my files back when I can't even repair my existing windows installation?

Edited by techie4fun, 13 March 2007 - 08:15 AM.

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if you've got a second hard drive you could install windows from your disk on that hard drive as the master drive...then hook up your old drive as slave to copy all the data files (music, pictures, documents etc..) over to the new drive and then you could format the old drive to use as a storage drive

[dsenette]

if you've got a second hard drive you could install windows from your disk on that hard drive as the master drive...then hook up your old drive as slave to copy all the data files (music, pictures, documents etc..) over to the new drive and then you could format the old drive to use as a storage drive

[Whiskeyman]

If you can borrow the use of another computer with a burner you could create a WinXP CD slipstreamed with SP2. Use this disk to do the repair install.

http://www.helpwithw...sp2-bootcd.html

[The Skeptic]

can you boot in safe mode?. If you can enter device manager go to Display Adaptors and uninstall the driver of your video card. Reboot and if OK search for the river version that you relaced with the new one. Even better, if you have the original driver disk use it to install the video driver.

If you do not suceed in safe mode try: start > run > msconfig. Check diagnostic startup and reboot. Uninstall the driver etc.

[techie4fun]

can you boot in safe mode?. If you can enter device manager go to Display Adaptors and uninstall the driver of your video card. Reboot and if OK search for the river version that you relaced with the new one. Even better, if you have the original driver disk use it to install the video driver.

If you do not suceed in safe mode try: start > run > msconfig. Check diagnostic startup and reboot. Uninstall the driver etc.

The only problem doing that is that I already attempted to do a repair installation of XP, so if I go into Safemode, it'll complain to me that I can't do a repair installation of XP in safemode. I've kinda hosed myself down...

Edited: I'm going to attempt to make a WinXP CD slipstreamed with SP2. If I don't have success, I'll have my dad put my hard drive in his machine so that I can at least get my files backed up if I decide to do a full format.

I appreciate those who have posted their comments on my issue. If anyone else knows something that hasn't been posted, please post your suggestions.

Thanks.

Edited by techie4fun, 13 March 2007 - 01:32 PM.

[techie4fun]

UPDATE:

My computer is now working.. I reinstalled windows on new directory called C:\WINDOWZ and now have my old copy of windows with my origional C:\WINDOWS directory along with my new copy. I was able to access all my files and other settings without a problem.

Things are almost back to normal again

Edited by techie4fun, 13 March 2007 - 07:20 PM.