Operating System Corrupted

[Guest]

First a bit of background:

I was in the middle of Restoring my OS to factory condition when all of the
sudden my power goes out. This cause a missing or corrupt file--I cannot get
into windows.

I pop in the disc but it asks me for a password, an administration one I
believe, but I never gave my computer such a password.

So I decided to install a second Windows XP onto the harddrive. The second
one says the modem device is missing. I tried detaching and reattaching the
internal modem and even pop in the driver disc. Nothing happens.


Now for my question:

What would be the best course of action:

- Should I attempt to fix the original OS (I never use any of its perks)
that came installed in the computer; or

- Delete it or delete them both and reinstall the XP?

- And what is with the modem device being missing? I am thinking this is
caused by having two OS on the hard drive.

 

[Charlie Tame]

First a bit of background:

I was in the middle of Restoring my OS to factory condition when all of
the
sudden my power goes out. This cause a missing or corrupt file--I cannot
get
into windows.

I pop in the disc but it asks me for a password, an administration one I
believe, but I never gave my computer such a password.

So I decided to install a second Windows XP onto the harddrive. The second
one says the modem device is missing. I tried detaching and reattaching
the
internal modem and even pop in the driver disc. Nothing happens.


Now for my question:

What would be the best course of action:

- Should I attempt to fix the original OS (I never use any of its perks)
that came installed in the computer; or

- Delete it or delete them both and reinstall the XP?

- And what is with the modem device being missing? I am thinking this is
caused by having two OS on the hard drive.

Someone might have similar experience with that particular make / model if
you mention what it is.

Are you using a disk supplied with the machine or a "Proper" Windows XP
disk?

My guess would be that the hard drive was corrupted by the outage and my
course of action would be to abandon everything and start over - but you
need to find out if you can get drivers for any stuff that is peculiar to
the maker. Some makers create a small partition on the hard drive with
things like that stored there and if that's the case your maker's "Recovery
disk" may not work.

The machine won't be trying to run two OS's at one time but it's generally a
bad idea to install 2 on the same partition, it's fine on two partitions or
two different drives. The best bet for you may be to consider buying a new
drive and then use the old one as a slave to recover your data. When
installing give the computer the same name and the Administrator the same
name and password, that way you shouldn't have any trouble accessing files.

We all have our own ways of dealing with such problems so by all means see
what else is suggested.

Charlie

 

[Rock]

First a bit of background:

I was in the middle of Restoring my OS to factory condition when all of
the
sudden my power goes out. This cause a missing or corrupt file--I cannot
get
into windows.

I pop in the disc but it asks me for a password, an administration one I
believe, but I never gave my computer such a password.

So I decided to install a second Windows XP onto the harddrive. The second
one says the modem device is missing. I tried detaching and reattaching
the
internal modem and even pop in the driver disc. Nothing happens.


Now for my question:

What would be the best course of action:

- Should I attempt to fix the original OS (I never use any of its perks)
that came installed in the computer; or

- Delete it or delete them both and reinstall the XP?

- And what is with the modem device being missing? I am thinking this is
caused by having two OS on the hard drive.

I would download a drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive
manufacturer's web site. That will create a bootable floppy or CD. Boot
from that and run diagnostics on the drive.

Charlie's post included many good points about doing a clean install in
terms of drives and any recovery partition. With those things in mind I
would suggest, if the drive is healthy, doing a clean install. I don't know
if you have a factory restore CD or a regular XP installation CD.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html