[spikeysas]

Having previously posted in the Win XP forum I was advised to post here to see if you can help. I am unable to complete the preparation steps as I can't access the desktop or start bar and I can't login in safe mode. Here is my original post:

Hi,

My friend has asked me to look at her laptop as when she tries to log in to Windows XP Pro it presents her with many errors and doesn't load the desktop icons or the start bar. Unfortunately she is not aware of anything that she may have done to cause this.

When I first tried to log into Windows it came up with the following error:

Explorer.EXE - Bad Image
The application or DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\WININET.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.

When I clicked ok various other similar errors appeared but I was able to access Task Manager so I ran chkdsk /r. Since rebooting the first error is:

Explorer.EXE - Unable To Locate Component
This application has failed to start because WININET.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

I am not sure what to do now. I can't run Internet Explorer as it says it can't find it - I was going to see if I could run an online virus scanner. If I try to go into Safe Mode I get the following BSOD:

STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x804D92C2, 0xF96E55C4, 0x00000000)

I am hoping to try and find a way of sorting this out without reinstalling Windows as I don't want to lose her data if at all possible.