[vectorsss]

I had this problem,
http://www.geekstogo...18#entry1248618

Which i had no help with.

So i did a repair install of windows, that finished fine.

But system wont start up. It loads windows and brings up a screen reading 'system is being restarted'. then shows a black screen with just a mouse arrow which can be moved with the mouse. after about 5 second the computer rebots.

and starts again.

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You did a repair install of XP Professional with an XP Home disk. That is your problem right there. Nothing can be done now about it other then you will need to format your hard drive and do a completely new fresh install with the version of XP you have and it's correct corresponding key.

If you have data you need to get off of it, then you can try doing a Parallel installation of XP before you completely reformat. the instructions on how to do that are as follows:

-------------------------------

Boot to the Windows XP installation cd by pressing a key when the "Press any key to boot from cd" prompt appears at the top of the screen.

• At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press Enter to set up Windows XP.
• Accept the License Agreement by pressing F8
• With your current installation selected in the box, press Esc
• Select C: Partition1 [NTFS] in the box and press Enter
• To continue setup using this partition, press C
• Now you should see formatting options...choose the last one, Leave the current file system intact (no changes), and press Enter
• To use a different folder, press Esc
• Name the folder WINDOWS0 (just type a 0 (zero)) and press Enter

The Windows installation should begin. This will install Windows to a new folder, leaving your data intact. Any programs installed on the old directory will have to be reinstalled to the new one. Device drivers will also have to be installed for all the hardware to work as it should.

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.

-------------------------------

Fenor

PS - When you start a topic and need to add something to it, please use the EDIT feature of your original post and not post a new reply, because when the staff here look for new topics, they find topics that have not been replied to yet and if there are replies (even if those replies are by you) they could be overlooked as being seen as someone is already helping that person.

[Fenor]

You did a repair install of XP Professional with an XP Home disk. That is your problem right there. Nothing can be done now about it other then you will need to format your hard drive and do a completely new fresh install with the version of XP you have and it's correct corresponding key.

If you have data you need to get off of it, then you can try doing a Parallel installation of XP before you completely reformat. the instructions on how to do that are as follows:

-------------------------------

Boot to the Windows XP installation cd by pressing a key when the "Press any key to boot from cd" prompt appears at the top of the screen.

• At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press Enter to set up Windows XP.
• Accept the License Agreement by pressing F8
• With your current installation selected in the box, press Esc
• Select C: Partition1 [NTFS] in the box and press Enter
• To continue setup using this partition, press C
• Now you should see formatting options...choose the last one, Leave the current file system intact (no changes), and press Enter
• To use a different folder, press Esc
• Name the folder WINDOWS0 (just type a 0 (zero)) and press Enter

The Windows installation should begin. This will install Windows to a new folder, leaving your data intact. Any programs installed on the old directory will have to be reinstalled to the new one. Device drivers will also have to be installed for all the hardware to work as it should.

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.

-------------------------------

Fenor

PS - When you start a topic and need to add something to it, please use the EDIT feature of your original post and not post a new reply, because when the staff here look for new topics, they find topics that have not been replied to yet and if there are replies (even if those replies are by you) they could be overlooked as being seen as someone is already helping that person.

[vectorsss]

My system was xp home, and i repair installed with xp home.

[Fenor]

I must have misread what you typed in your other topic. Anywho, still do the Parallel Installation of Windows and backup your important data and then do a completely format and reinstall.

[vectorsss]

is it possible to just buy a new hard drive (which i wanto anyway) and install windows onto that fresh, then once windows is open mount my other HDD with the files on it?

[Fenor]

You could do that. Just make sure that this old hard drive is jumpered as Slave and the new one is jumpered as Master so that your computer boots from the right hard drive since both hard drives will initially have a version of Windows on it.