EVERY THING IS GONE! HELP!!!!!!!

[Andrea]

first of all im running windows xp home. I had started a
system restore when my baby nephew hit the eject button on
my CD-ROM and ejected the disk!! it had already erased
every thing and now it wont read the disk. I have went to
microsoft to get the floppy disk boot utility but every
time i download it and make my floppies one of the six is
always corrupt! (its a different one every time). what can
i do? please some one help me i have cried my eyes out
over this and im just heart broke now...

 

[Jim]

-----Original Message-----
first of all im running windows xp home. I had started a
system restore when my baby nephew hit the eject button on
my CD-ROM and ejected the disk!! it had already erased
every thing and now it wont read the disk. I have went to
microsoft to get the floppy disk boot utility but every
time i download it and make my floppies one of the six is
always corrupt! (its a different one every time). what can
i do? please some one help me i have cried my eyes out
over this and im just heart broke now...
.

Hello
no need to cry it will be alright you can download a
bootdisk at www.bootdisk.com or you can use this one

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?
displaylang=en&FamilyID=E8FE6868-6E4F-471C-B455-
BD5AFEE126D8

you should be able to put your first restore disk in and
start your puter and do a format and install
Hope this helps
Jim

 

[Tom Swift]

Hold on, Andrea, things aren't so bad.

In the first place, let's understand what happened. The System Restore
function of Windows XP doesn't require a CD. You do it directly from your
computer.

Were you trying to reinstall Windows from the Windows XP CD? We sometimes
reinstall Windows when the operating system has become unstable in which
case a reinstall can often fix the problem. But a reinstall doesn't erase
your files. It merely reinstalls Windows on top of itself, and none of your
own files (documents, pictures, etc.) are touched by the process.

You say that "...it had already erased everything...", which is puzzling
since, in a reinstall of Windows, nothing gets erased that would cause you
any trouble. Were you trying to perform a 'clean install' of Windows? A
clean install, by definition, completely erases your hard drive. Everything
is gone. That's a scorched earth approach that we do when the operating
system is in such bad shape that it's irreparable. A virus can land us in
that situation, for example. In a clean install, you want to erase
everything and start over.

Also know this: If a CD is ejected while the computer is reading from it,
well it's certainly not convenient, but it shouldn't cause any damage. All
you have to do is restart whatever you were doing from the top. It doesn't
damage the CD and it doesn't erase any of your own files.

So, don't worry so much and answer this question for us: Exactly what were
you trying to do?

Tom Swift