Power loss during Windows XP installation

[Guest]

Hi! I had a Portuguese version of Windows XP and last night I was
installing the English version. It said it would have to do a full
installation, like, deleting all the files on my computer and stuff...
During the installation I lost power here at my house and the computer
obviously turned off. Now I can't install it anymore, and I can't
access my hard drive at all. I changed the order on the BOOT so it
would access my CD drive first, but nothing happens. It keeps reading
the CD forever but the screen stays black and doesn't change. I also
tried creating a DOS BOOT DISKETTE on another computer I have and then
when i try to go to c: it says "Invalid drive specification". Can
anybody help me please? I would really appreciate it! Thank you very
much..

Samir

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Invalid drive specification
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/operrSpecification-c.html

Download the free trial version of DriveScrubber and use this
utility to wipe your drive clean, then proceed with a "clean install".
http://www.iolo.com/ds/index.cfm

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

Enjoy all the benefits of genuine Microsoft software:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx

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:

| Hi! I had a Portuguese version of Windows XP and last night I was
| installing the English version. It said it would have to do a full
| installation, like, deleting all the files on my computer and stuff...
| During the installation I lost power here at my house and the computer
| obviously turned off. Now I can't install it anymore, and I can't
| access my hard drive at all. I changed the order on the BOOT so it
| would access my CD drive first, but nothing happens. It keeps reading
| the CD forever but the screen stays black and doesn't change. I also
| tried creating a DOS BOOT DISKETTE on another computer I have and then
| when i try to go to c: it says "Invalid drive specification". Can
| anybody help me please? I would really appreciate it! Thank you very
| much..
|
| Samir

 

[Guest]

If you specified NTFS as the partition type in the setup, then this won't be
visible from DOS, hence the invalid drive.

If you're not worried about losing data in the partition, you can use DOS
FDISK to remove it, and start afresh.

Ranish Partition manager is also a useful tool for deleting damaged
partitions.

If you do need to recover data, then I'd suggest trying a BartPE or Knoppix
bootable CD to access it.