[saioke]

hey all.. i dont know where else to turn but i must reinstall windows (windows deactivated, cant activate it at all either)...

anyhow, one morning i put in this disc with my graphic drivers on it into a CD-R burner and the next thing i know i hear this screeching noise. i open my disc drive up to find that the cd broken into bits. not only that but my cd drive wouldnt work at all (wouldnt show up under my computer, bios, nothing at all!)

now i got another one which came out of a perfectly good computer only this one is dvd drive. i install it and boom.. still nothing shows up in the bios or nothing and i know for a fact nothing is wrong with this drive. i cant fix it but i must fix it. does anyone know what the problem is? the disc drive still opens and the led still lights up.

sadly i cant get into windows XP at all because its been deactivated now which is why i need the cd drive to work to reinstall it. can anyone help please?


my specs are if needed,:
windows xp home
768mb ram
533w power supply
2 hard drives (one 60 and one 40 totaling 101gb)
2.0ghz intel celeron processor
nvidia geforce fx 5200 256mb 128bit


its a fairly old computer which i had since 1999 with only a few upgrades. i just dont want to buy another.

[Advertisements]

How do you mean Windows has been deactivated? It's not possible to deactivate it if it was activated before.
The closest you get is when it prompts for activation on the log-in screen.

[Neil Jones]

How do you mean Windows has been deactivated? It's not possible to deactivate it if it was activated before.
The closest you get is when it prompts for activation on the log-in screen.

[saioke]

yeah i mean its actually been deactivated for some odd reason.

it was activated before until i upgraded to windows xp service pack 3 (which i know was a very stupid mistake because its not the official release by microsoft.) my friend sent me a link to get it saying it boost performance in xp so thats why i upgraded.

but yeah when i try to log in it promps to activate it. i click yes and it says windows is already activated. so if you click ok it restarts and does the same thing over and over. so my only option that i know of right now is to reinstall it.

Edited by saioke, 05 January 2008 - 04:34 PM.

[The Skeptic]

Make sure the new drive is jumpered correctly. Make sure the flat cable is connected correctly (red edge towards the power connector) and firmly. If still no good connect it as slave to the HD on which you want the operating system to be installed. Do that even if you have to remove the other HD temporarilly.

[saioke]

hmm yeah i got the connectors connected right.

what do you mean? hook the drive into the hard drive?

[The Skeptic]

The flat cable, on which the HD with the operating system is connected, has two connections, aside from the one connecting to the motherboard. Connect the HD on which you plan to install windows, to the end of the cable and jumper it as Master. Connect a good cd drive to the mid-cable connection and jumper it as slave. Insert XP disk into the CD drive and run installation.

[wannabe1]

Hello saioke...

This may be something that will get you going again. Restoring to a previous registry hive should remove the SP3 that borked your installation.

If you have your Windows XP disk

• Insert your Windows XP disk into your computer and reboot
• Make sure the PC is set to run from the CD as the primary boot device.
  NOTE: You do this by setting your PC to boot to the CD-ROM in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the CD as the first boot device)
• When the PC boots, it will boot from the CD...after the first several screens load, you will be given a choice to choose R for Recovery Console. You will be asked to log in.
  NOTE: For Windows XP Home, there is not password, just hit ENTER. For Windows XP pro, ask whomever set up the machine what password they used.

When you see the Recovery console C:\WINDOWS prompt continue to section 3 ("System Restore")

If you DO NOT have your Windows XP disk

• Download RC.ISO from Here.
• Now burn this ISO image to a CD and boot your computer with it.
  NOTE: Keep in mind that this is different than burning a file to a CD-ROM. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download CDBurnerXP Pro to another Windows machine and install it. Then go Here for instructions for burning the ISO image
• Once the CD is created, place it in the defunct computer
• Then reboot your broken PC with that CD in the CD-ROM drive.
• Make sure the PC is set to run from the CD as the primary boot device.
  NOTE: You do this by setting your PC to boot to the CD-ROM in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the CD as the first boot device)
• When the PC boots, it will boot from the CD...after the first several screens load, you will be given a choice to choose R for Recovery Console. You will be asked to log in.
  NOTE: For Windows XP Home, there is not password, just hit ENTER. For Windows XP pro, ask whomever set up the machine what password they used.

System Restore

• When you get to the recovery console Type
  

  CD \

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  cd system~1\_resto~1

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  dir

• Press Enter

After you press enter you will see a list of folders (like rp1, rp2) If the list of restore points has more than one page then press the Enter key untill you reach the end of the list

• Type
  

  cd rp {number of the second to last folder in the list}

  Note: Example: cd rp9, if rp9 is the second to the last restore point where the last restore point no. is 10
• Press Enter
• Type
  

  cd snapshot

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  copy _registry_machine_software c:\windows\system32\config\software

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  Exit

• Press Enter

Your PC will reboot.

If you get an access denied error when doing the above, then do the following at the recovery console:

• Type
  

  CD \

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  cd windows\system32\config

• Press Enter
• Type
  

  ren system system.bak

• Press Enter
  
• Type
  

  Exit

• Press Enter

Your PC will reboot, go back into the Recovery Console and start from the beginning

If you still cannot get access in anyway to your installation in the recovery console then your SAM database files are corrupt. There is no way you can restore these with the recovery console. You may need to do a fresh install

wannabe1

[saioke]

hmm interesting.

i will try and report back here to see if it worked.

[saioke]

sorry or replying so long but i removed SP# and it did fix my system.. however i would still like to fix my disc drives. any help?

[vally]

Did you try and connect the other dvd player like The Skeptic recommended?