Repair install problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter KenV
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KenV

I tried to do a repair install (/not/ the recovery module) on a system with XP
Pro SP2 installed. but using the original XP disk with SP1. There were numerous
files that the installation process couldn't copy, despite the fact that in each
case I could see the file on the CD ROM that the install process was looking
for. For example, it wanted to copy a file I'll call "mdinit.dll". On the browse
screen it showed "mdinit" without the dll extension, but under file types grayed
out below, it said "mdinit.dll,mdinit.dll" as the files it was looking for, all
without the quotes, of course. It is as if it couldn't see the extensions and
thought the file wasn't on the CDROM under the i386 directory, which it was.

In regular Windows operation, under View, you can set it to view files with or
without showing the extension, and in this case, on the XP CDROM, it doesn't
show the extension, even though it is obviously there.

My XP repair install obviously didn't work well because of this. I even tried a
sfc /scannow with the XP CDROM in place, and it ran through that, but didn't
help.

Any way to get around this? I am trying to avoid a reformat and clean install in
order to keep my add-on progams, but it doesn't look promising.

Ken
 
If you only did the Sp1 install and not the Sp2 upgrade then you didn't
finish the restore process. At some point the process may have asked you to
replace a newer file with an older version but if it did not that's most
likely your problem.

In the install CD all the files are compressed and need to be extracted /
expanded via the normal install / recovery process. It does this in .i386 and
older versions it was in /options/cabs
 
KenV said:
I tried to do a repair install (/not/ the recovery module) on a system with
XP Pro SP2 installed. but using the original XP disk with SP1. There were
numerous files that the installation process couldn't copy, despite the
fact that in each case I could see the file on the CD ROM that the install
process was looking for. For example, it wanted to copy a file I'll call
"mdinit.dll". On the browse screen it showed "mdinit" without the dll
extension, but under file types grayed out below, it said
"mdinit.dll,mdinit.dll" as the files it was looking for, all without the
quotes, of course. It is as if it couldn't see the extensions and thought
the file wasn't on the CDROM under the i386 directory, which it was.

In regular Windows operation, under View, you can set it to view files
with or without showing the extension, and in this case, on the XP CDROM,
it doesn't show the extension, even though it is obviously there.

My XP repair install obviously didn't work well because of this. I even
tried a sfc /scannow with the XP CDROM in place, and it ran through that,
but didn't help.

Any way to get around this? I am trying to avoid a reformat and clean
install in order to keep my add-on progams, but it doesn't look promising.

Ken
Click to expand...

I would probably try the repair install again.

Jon
 
Jon said:
I would probably try the repair install again.
Click to expand...

I´ve done it twice already--worse the second time.


Wally U said:
If you only did the Sp1 install and not the Sp2 upgrade then you didn't finish
the restore process. At some point the process may have asked you to replace a
newer file with an older version but if it did not that's most likely your
problem.
In the install CD all the files are compressed and need to be extracted /
expanded via the normal install / recovery process. It does this in .i386 and
older versions it was in /options/cabs
Click to expand...

This is the Windows SP1 complete install disk from Microsoft, the i386
version--no cabs

It /may/ have been skipping the newer files from the previous SP2, but after the
incomplete installation, Properties under My Computer still calls it SP1. And I
have tried to reinstall SP2 over it from the full SP2 upgrade (250megs) that I
used the first time I put in SP2, whenever it came out, but the upgrade doesn't
take.

There my be registry corruption--that is what I am afraid of. But, again, I
don't know why the SP1 upgrade doesn't see many of the files that are clearly on
the CDROM. See the original post for details.

Ken
 
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