I agree with the previous reply: It is Compaq/HP's
problem to fix, not Microsoft's. You might ask Compaq/HP
support whether a random XP CDROM could be used for the
repair, or whether there are license issues in doing that.
As for saving your files, there are many third part file
recovery programs that can boot a PC without a working
version of windows and read files and write them to
removeable media (floppy, ZIP, USB hard drive, CD, etc).
If you decide to go this route, be aware that mnay older
recovery programs assume that the file system is FAT32,
not NTFS, which is the default for XP.
If it was FAT32, you could ue a simple DOS boot floppy to
copy or xcopy files. With NTFS you nee spcial drivers.
However, a free set of read/copy only drives is available
at:
http://www.systeminternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/NTFSDOS.shtml
If you need a DOS boot disk (really 98, 98SE, ME), get one
at
www.bootdisk.com.
The primary problem with the boot loppy approach is tha
you need somewhere DOS can access to copy the files to.
This is more or less limited to internal devices or SCSI
external devices. In general DOS does not do USB nor
firewire. Still, you could install a second hard drive,
formated FAT32, and DOS would copy to it.
Finally, there are boxes called USB (or firewire)
enclosures. You could place the current hard drive into
one of those and recover files by attaching it to a second
computer that is running XP. NTFS would not be an issue,
since XP does NTFS very well. From there, you could write
them to CD-R, etc, and re-copy them back to your PC after
it is fixed.
At some point, if you can not do a "repair", Compaq/HP
will probably suggest that you do a "restoration", which
will erase all your files. In fact, I am surpised that
was not their first suggestion. These days PC support is
often less about fixing the real problem than about
quickly relieving the PC maker of responsibilty for any
problems with their hardware. Software problem that occur
after you start adding files, going on-line, etc are not
really something that most PC makers want to deal with.
Well, best of luck repairing and/or recovering files.
Once back in operation, please consider investing in some
good backup software, or at least learn how to use XCOPY
(free with DOS, 95, 98, ME, XP) to backup personal files
of the computer. CDs/DVDs are great, but external USB
drives are a lot faster, and readable by most modern PCs.
