Corrupt Operating System-XP

[Jason]

I've recently been having problems with my computer
communicating with my CD-RW and DVD drives and also
trouble with accessing high speed internet via ethernet
cable. When I restart, it says the configuration on the
disk drives and my hard drive were altered and sometimes I
have to reboot several times because the load screen for
XP just hangs there. I took in in for a diagnostic and
they said my OS was corrupted and they would have to
reload the OS which would erase everything. Is there
anything I can do before attempting this? Also, if I do
attempt to restore, am I going to have to go through and
save all my important files one by one, or will a backup
work? Thank you for any help

 

[doc]

-----Original Message-----
I've recently been having problems with my computer
communicating with my CD-RW and DVD drives and also
trouble with accessing high speed internet via ethernet
cable. When I restart, it says the configuration on the
disk drives and my hard drive were altered and sometimes I
have to reboot several times because the load screen for
XP just hangs there. I took in in for a diagnostic and
they said my OS was corrupted and they would have to
reload the OS which would erase everything. Is there
anything I can do before attempting this? Also, if I do
attempt to restore, am I going to have to go through and
save all my important files one by one, or will a backup
work? Thank you for any help
.

It's interesting that they told you your OS was corrupted
but failed to mention what might have corrupted it. By the
sounds of it, "they" plan on wiping out your harddrive and
doing a clean install, which absolutely will result in
loss of ALL data. You will need to back up or otherwise
make copies of files (and programs) you want to keep. You
may wish to try repairing the OS installation first, since
there doesn't seem to be a specific cause of
the "corruption"; theoretically this won't cause data loss
but even so you need to back up files just in case.
In either case, I would want to find the cause of the
corruption first so as to avoid this situation again.
Good luck.
doc