[theyalltaken]

Ok, on my XP desktop everything was running great until I stopped using it upon purchase of my Vista laptop. I was out of town for business, when I came back to turn on my desktop about 3 weeks of not being used I got a black screen saying (I believe) something to the effect that sys32 couldn't be found. Naturally I googled this and tried to follow the procedures recommended, which had me doing who knows what to the kernel and other registry stuff with the repair toll on the Windows cd.

I thought it was repaired because it would finally boot up but now it only goes to the welcome screen before restarting every time it gets there. I tried the google technique for this but when I try to use the repair tool now it won't let me enter it because there has been some sort of administrator password put with the windows folder if that makes any sense.

So basically I want to know if it is possible for me to transfer my files from the XP HD to my Vista laptop without being able to actually boot the XP? If anybody could help me out here I would really appreciate it. I've never attempted any file transferring. Would I be able to use a USB cord?

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You would need a HD enclosure that has USB on it. All enclosures do. Put the HD in the enclosure, plug in to a USB on laptop and you should see the HD.

[123Runner]

You would need a HD enclosure that has USB on it. All enclosures do. Put the HD in the enclosure, plug in to a USB on laptop and you should see the HD.

[theyalltaken]

Could you point me to a link IE newegg that sells them? I don't want to waist my money on purchasing the wrong one. The HD is a SATA one.

[Ztruker]

A question if you don't mind? Was the procedure you were following to try to make the system usable again this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

If so I can guarantee that it works as I just used it today to fix a computer that was getting this error:

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

It looks daunting but if you take it step by step it works well. Print out the instructions and work through them.

[theyalltaken]

Yes, it was that exact problem and I was following those directions but now I can't even get the recovery thing to work because there was a admin password set to it? I was pretty frustrated by the whole situation , so I was just looking for a solution to take my data off the hard drive and do a fresh install.

[Ztruker]

For external enclosures, look here: External ecnlosures on NewEgg

Forgot to mention, you must have USB 2.0 for these to work. If you only have USB 1.1 then I'm not sure what you can do to use this with your laptop.

Edited by Ztruker, 02 January 2008 - 09:35 PM.