[Smoothie]

Hi all,

I tried to follow your guide to make a repair install of my Windows XP Home installation. I booted into my Windows disc, did all the normal stuff, and it seemed to go fine. At the end of the text-based stuff, it gave me the instruction to reboot, having moved the files it needed to the HDD, I believe.

Anyway, the jist is that the text-based stuff seemed to go fine, I rebooted as instructed, and then did NOT click to boot from the CD (which, I believe, was the right choice). I let Windows load normally but... no GUI based stuff came up to finish off the repair installation, and consequently, what I've done seems to have had no effect whatsoever.

The disc is an original OEM product, not a recovery disc or anything, and it may be worth noting that it is labelled "XRMHOEM_EN"... could this be a sign that it wouldn't be recognised when trying to finish the installation?

Thanks in advance, this is really bugging me.

-Smoothie

Edited by Smoothie, 29 December 2005 - 03:04 PM.

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So you are saying that after you rebooted your computer during the repair installation process, you ended up back at your desktop?

Fenor

[Fenor]

So you are saying that after you rebooted your computer during the repair installation process, you ended up back at your desktop?

Fenor

[Smoothie]

Exactly. Nothing had changed, the installation did not continue.

[Fenor]

That's kind of strange, but so is the label on your XP cd. Anyways, can you tell me why you want to do a repair installation in the first place? What is going wrong that you need to do this? I may be able to help you fix the current problem without having to worry about the repair installation.

Fenor

[Smoothie]

In my previous posts I've detailed how webcams don't work on this Windows installation.

Furthermore, it doesn't seem to recognise new optical media drives (eg. when adding a drive in Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools), giving the error "Windows could not load the driver for the device" or something to that effect.

It does this even when using my USB thumbdrive device, before allowing the device to be fully functional. Since I'm installing a DVD burner shortly, I can't do with this happening.

Since the Windows XP Home installation is a few years old and has been damaged in the past (a Xolox installation left it unable to boot, which required some file copying with the Windows Repair Console), I suspect it may be time to try to start afresh as best I can, without losing my data, and without a viable means of backup.

Oh, and Windows Update doesn't work either. It tries to download two packages (Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 and KB898461), both of which download and then update has having "failed!".

Attempts to download and run the packages from the Windows site directly have resulted in the helpful -


Huge thanks to you in advance if you can help with any of these problems.

Edited by Smoothie, 30 December 2005 - 10:57 AM.

[gerryf]

That is odd.

If this were me, I would drop the harddrive in a second computer, rename C: C:\WINDOWS to c:\bakwin
C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS c:\bakDS
C:\PROGRAM FILES c:\bakpf

Then insert he drive back in the original POC, and using your oddly named OEM-CD, start a fresh install, but leave the existing partition, and DO NOT FORMAT

This will create a new windows installation, leaving data intact, for you to go back and get later. (you will likely not need the old c:\program files and c:\windows, but they are work keeping around for a couple of weeks for things like fonts, *inf files, and program settings.

You will of course have to reinstall all programs, but your data will be there and retrievable.

[Smoothie]

Interesting. Thanks for the advice gerryf, I've got a laptop lying around here so I might try to use that to backup for the time being.

Actually... I've just come across an interesting problem. When trying to go into the installation inside the Windows installation (if that makes sense), I get the following message:



Perhaps an option would be to uninstall SP2 to make the installation the same as the SP1 disc I have? I understand this isn't ideal, but seeing as it can be removed fairly easily I'm tempted to give it a go.

Otherwise, I might be able to get a different XP disc, hopefully with a different label. I'll check against http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=283 to see whether it's suitable.

Thanks again,
Smoothie

[gerryf]

You could accomplish the same thing (renaming the files), by creating a bartpe disk

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Or, you can get yourself a harddisk enclosure from a local computer store for about $20, drop your drive in that, hook it up to the USB port, and rename those directories that way.

I love my harddisk enclosures--I have one for 3.5 inch and laptop 2.5" disks to recover data from totally hosed operating systems. Very simple.