[lbarbosa]

My computer has a partition with the original factory installed Windows XP. I need to use it to repair my C drive. But it appears to be locked, and I really don't know what steps to follow to use it once it is unlocked (problem #2). My computer is stuck in safe mode, and won't let me restore to any earlier 'correctly working' restoration points. In fact, there are no correctly working restoration points, which is something else that needs fixing. I would like to create some once I have everything working right again. And I backed up my harddrive (hopefully) before all this happened this morning.

Can you help me???

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Great explanation but you forgot one key element.
We have no ideal what brand, make or model your system is to suggest the steps to get into the Recovery Partition.

[rshaffer61]

Great explanation but you forgot one key element.
We have no ideal what brand, make or model your system is to suggest the steps to get into the Recovery Partition.

[lbarbosa]

I have a hp pavilion dv 8000, xp professional, 5.1.2600 service pack 3 build 2600. Is there anything else you need?

[rshaffer61]

HP Recovery Partition Access:
Press the power button to start the HP. Press and hold the F11 key to launch the HP Recovery Manager from the recovery partition.

[lbarbosa]

Thank you. But can you tell me what exactly will happen when I do that. Although I have repartitioned a hard drive a long time ago, will I have to re-setup my internet access? I have forgotten some of this stuff. Thank you again for your help. Your answer seems so simple. I wonder why they didn't include this in the instructions or help file on the computer. I did look.

[rshaffer61]

With the factory recovery everything will be just as it was when the system was brand new.
Internet should already be active at that point but you will have to redo all your favorites or bookmarks depending on which browser you use.
Any emails and all that will be lost unless you save them before doing the restore. If the system can at least open your browser regardless if it connects tot he internet or not we can save your bookmarks.
If your email is through outlook or mozilla thunderbird I can help you back them up also.

[lbarbosa]

Again, thanks for the help. I did what you said and now I'm trying to get everything back the way I had it. I just got back on the internet. What a project! My computer is 5 years old, so my internet explorer needs to be upgraded to the latest version, but when I try to upgrade I keep getting an error message that it's not a valid win32 program (I may be giving you the exact message, but it's something like that. Can you help with that? My emails are all right.

[rshaffer61]

Are you upgrading through Internet Explorer itself or trying to do it manually??