That means your setup is too corrupt for a repair install.
If you wish to try to retrieve your data, you're only hope at this point is
to do a new install of XP on a separate partition, then try to copy your
data from the partition with the old setup to the partition with the new
setup. If you don't have an extra partition, you'll need third party
software such as Partition Magic,
www.powerquest.com, to create one as XP
can't do that unless there is available, unpartitioned free space.
Once you get XP installed on the new partition, you will likely receive an
access denied message when trying to access your data. This is a part of XP
security and you will need to take ownership of the files as follows:
.. Note, file ownership and permissions supersede administrator rights. How
you resolve it depends upon which version of XP you are running.
XP-Home
Unfortunately, XP Home using NTFS is essentially hard wired for "Simple File
Sharing" at system level.
However, you can set XP Home permissions in Safe Mode. Reboot, and start
hitting F8, a menu should eventually appear and one of the
options is Safe Mode. Select it. Note, it will ask for the administrator's
password. This is not your administrator account, rather it is the
machine's administrator account for which users are asked to create a
password during setup.
If you created no such password, when requested, leave blank and press
enter.
Open Explorer, go to Tools and Folder Options, on the view tab, scroll to
the bottom of the list, if it shows "Enable Simple File Sharing" deselect it
and click apply and ok. If it shows nothing or won't let you make a change,
move on to the next step.
Navigate to the files, right click, select properties, go to the Security
tab, click advanced, go to the Owner tab and select the user that was logged
on when you were refused permission to access the files. Click apply and
ok. Close the properties box, reopen it, click add and type in the name of
the user you just enabled. If you wish to set ownership for everything in
the folder, at the bottom of the Owner tab is the following selection:
"Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," select it as well.
Once complete, you should be able to do what you wish with these files when
you log back on as that user.
XP-Pro
If you have XP Pro, temporarily change the limited account to
administrative. First, go to Windows Explorer, go to Tools, select Folder
Options, go to the View tab and be sure "Use Simple File Sharing" is not
selected. If it is, deselect it and click apply and ok.
If you wish everything in a specific folder to be accessible to a user,
right click the folder, select properties, go to the Security tab, click
Advanced, go to the Owner tab,
select the user you wish to have access, at the bottom of the box, you
should see a check box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,"
place a check in the box and click apply and ok.
The user should now be able to perform necessary functions on files in the
folder even as a limited account. If not, make it an admin account again,
right click the folder, select Properties, go to the Security tab and be
sure the user is listed in the user list. If not, click add and type the
user name in the appropriate box, be sure the user has all the necessary
permissions checked in the permission list below the user list, click apply
and ok.
That should do it and allow whatever access you desire for that folder even
in a limited account.
