Loading Screen Question Media Centre XP

[FSman]

Hey Guys im just about to repair a friends PC that won't get past the loading screen, my problem is the guy does not know what is installed on the System but gave me a couple of discs to use in the repair, both the discs are Windows XP Media Centre.

The thing is the loading Screen for the PC says Windows XP.

So my question is Does windows media centre say just XP on the loading screen? Or does it actually have Media Centre on it?

There is no point in asking the guy whos PC it is.

Cheers

 

[FSman]

Okay Im really stumped, when i use an XP disc it does no see any windows installed just the NTFS partition, and whatever i try it does not boot from the Media Centre Disc.

I selected the cd drive as first in the boot sequence and even clicked it in the boot menu but then it just ignores the disc and try's to boot windows normally which results in the same loop of windows crashing everytime. It just won't boot of the MCE disc whatever i try.

Any ideas?

 

[Ian]

Does safe mode work at all? It seems odd that it won't boot from a CD, are you able to see if it boots on another machine?

 

[floppybootstomp]

XP won't see any version of Windows installed if I recall correctly but it will warn you before you confirm formatting.

If it won't boot from the media CD it's probably because one of two reasons:

1) The disc is damaged.
2) It's an iffy copy.

 

[FSman]

Okay so after a little testing...

I have 2 imaculate copys of Windows XP Media Center to hand, these will not boot in ANY machine in the house, the computers just will not boot from them.

I have a copy of Windows XP Home which all the computers boot from, when i click enter on setup whilst it is in the machine i want to repair it then comes up with 1 NTFS Partition but it does not say it has windows on it and give me the repair files option like that same XP disc does when i put it in the XP machine.

So because of this it must mean that the machine i am trying to repair has the Media Centre version installed but as media center discs won't boot on any machine... (why is this?) i am stumped again.

The machine that im trying to repair by the way will not boot at all, when it first starts up it says windows failed bla bla bla do you want to start windows and gives the usual options, all of the options fail and the machine resets and starts again.

Im 99% sure now it has Media Center on it but why won't it boot from the Media Center discs? I have 2 Brand new legitimate copys.

 

[FSman]

Ok I just explored the discs on my Vista machine that is working fine and the Media Centre discs look like they don't have any of the files needed just one file which is a self extracting cabinet, as these are shipped with the machine i think it may just be for adding windows progs etc but useless for booting from.

So what now lol, apart from telling him to go buy XP and that he will loose all his files what are the options?

 

[Abarbarian]

Ok I just explored the discs on my Vista machine that is working fine and the Media Centre discs look like they don't have any of the files needed just one file which is a self extracting cabinet, as these are shipped with the machine i think it may just be for adding windows progs etc but useless for booting from.

So what now lol, apart from telling him to go buy XP and that he will loose all his files what are the options?

Back up the files fro a Linux Live CD and boot with Mandriva's version of Linux. Tell him it is th efuture of computing and it will not cost him anything except your time.