How to fix one of two installs c:\windows and c:\windows2 ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LoneTreeTechy
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LoneTreeTechy

My original Windows XP Home edition became corrupt and the blue screen kept
coming up due to bad video drivers. If I disable the blue screen, the machine
would just reboot itself over and over. I tried removing the bad drivers,
safe mode, command prompt, various Windows repair utilities...

Finally I just used the included OEM Windows repair CD and it let me install
a second instance of Windows on the same file system - I installed it to
c:\windows2.

All my files and programs are physically on the disk, but I can't run
Office, for example, nor can I seem to access my old user profiles, settings,
etc. I don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling hundreds of
programs, so...

Is there a way to manually repair the first windows installation while
booted into the second installation, or merge the programs and settings?
 
LoneTreeTechy said:
My original Windows XP Home edition became corrupt and the blue screen
kept
coming up due to bad video drivers. If I disable the blue screen, the
machine
would just reboot itself over and over. I tried removing the bad drivers,
safe mode, command prompt, various Windows repair utilities...

Finally I just used the included OEM Windows repair CD and it let me
install
a second instance of Windows on the same file system - I installed it to
c:\windows2.

All my files and programs are physically on the disk, but I can't run
Office, for example, nor can I seem to access my old user profiles,
settings,
etc. I don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling hundreds of
programs, so...

Is there a way to manually repair the first windows installation while
booted into the second installation, or merge the programs and settings?
Click to expand...

Sorry, the answer is "no" to both questions.
 
Pegasus (MVP) said:
Sorry, the answer is "no" to both questions.
Click to expand...

Well, then, how do I delete (as opposed to 'uninstall') the bad drivers? I
don't know where they are located or how they are initialized. I'm sure if I
did that, I could then successfully just boot into the original installation.

Thanks - for helping me on this - better than paying $59 for tech support to
tell me "No." ... lol ... ;-)
 
LoneTreeTechy said:
Well, then, how do I delete (as opposed to 'uninstall') the bad drivers? I
don't know where they are located or how they are initialized. I'm sure if
I
did that, I could then successfully just boot into the original
installation.

Thanks - for helping me on this - better than paying $59 for tech support
to
tell me "No." ... lol ... ;-)
Click to expand...

- How long since this version became unuseable?
- Does it fix things to boot into Safe Mode of the
old version of Windows?
 
Pegasus (MVP) said:
- How long since this version became unuseable?
- Does it fix things to boot into Safe Mode of the
old version of Windows?
Click to expand...

The problems were on-and-off for a while a few months ago, but fairly
recently the cycle of endless reboots became unstoppable. I haven't done
anything since installing the new WINDOWS2. Safe mode doesn't help - the
video drivers (based on what I can gather) are crashing the system. I even
tried reverting to the OEM video card, but the ATI Rage drivers still
interfere. Plug-n-play doesn't seem to work in reverse.

If I knew how to remove all the drivers from the original configuration, I
could just boot-er-up and reinstall whatever was required from that point.
What do you think?
 
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