Repairing windows, but stuck at the asms file

[Guest]

I'm doing a repair of Windows XP Home on my laptop. I get an error saying it
needs the asms file, but it won't look for the file on the cd drive. I've
read all the discussions about this problem, and tried the "fixes" to no
avail. It isn't an option to swap out my cd drive for another, and when I
tried to use regedit.exe, it wouldn't let me into the program. I tried
copying the needed file to a USB flash drive, but the installer won't read
that either. How do I get the installer to recognize my cd drive or my USB
drive?

 

[Guest]

Actually doing a "repair" to xp is a waste of time,by choosing install xp &
reformating the hd,the extra needed time for this is small,+ you get a clean
xp install.The repair looses all updates,if you ran the FTW from the xp cd
& saved files-settings,youre much better off in the long run...

 

[Guest]

I would, except that I don't have backups of all my files. Dumb, I know. I
want to do a repair so that I can recover as much as possible, because I have
some pictures and videos I really don't want to lose.