Repairing Windows XP in Eight Commands

Linc

Thrax has authored a new guide on how to quickly repair a common XP failure.

Allow me to build tension by prefacing the end-all/be-all solution with my background: Having worked for the now-incorporated Geek Squad branch of Best Buy Corporation for the better part of eight months, I have seen dozens upon dozens of systems come through our department with any one of these errors, brought in by customers who are afraid they did something, have a virus, or are in jeopardy of losing their data.

Prior to my discovery of an invaluable sequence of commands, our standard procedure was to hook the afflicted drive to an external enclosure, back up a customer’s data and then restore the PC with the customer’s restore discs or an identical copy of Windows with the customer’s OEM license key. If the customer wasn’t keen on the applicable charges for the data backup, we informed them of the potential risks for a Windows repair installation (Let’s face it, they don’t always work right), had them sign a waiver, and we did our best.

Please comment on the article in this thread.

Source: Short-Media

knucklehead

Keebler and Thrax, I found your post through a Yahoo search, and thank you for putting it out. I crashed my HD the other day moving files around, after using a duplicate file app. I did NOT delelte anything, but moved the wrong ones to a folder within the recycle bin, and got the "NTDLR is missing" message that could be solved by your solution, however when I get to Step 2, where "C:\WINDOWS" should be(for the 'windows installation' choice), I get this-
"H:\MiniNT"
"H:\I386", instead of "C:\WINDOWS"
I have 2 HD's, C & D on an HP pavilion a710n, with windows xp home, and one or the other of my drives is partitioned, or do these to descriptions just describe the existing partition on "C"? Anyway, i dont know which one to choose, and where to go from there. I have nothing backed up anywhere, foolishly, and cant afford to lose whats on there. Can you help me please?

Thrax

Those entries mean your C:\Windows partition doesn't exist or is inaccessible (corrupt drive).

Follow this: http://icrontic.com/articles/easy_data_recovery
If that fails, then this: http://icrontic.com/articles/advanced_data_recovery

After that, do a repair install via this guide: http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_install_windows_xp

knucklehead

Thanx Keebler! I'll give it a shot and let you know how it turns out...

Thrax

what? Keebler and I are different people. I wrote the article, he published it because he's the editor.