Repairing XP - And no install disk. How screwed am I?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ReGenesis0
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ReGenesis0

Let's assume for a moment that XP is giving me problems. (Probably a
fair assumption.) and that I know I have at least a few corrupted
fires causing certain system tasks to... not work.

The fixes for these problems boil down to bringign them to windows's
attention in the correct manner whereupon it will snort like a tired
gout-ridden englishmen, blink a few times and say "Hrmph, I say hrmph,
that's just not kipper. What say you fish out your XP install cds and
we reinstall the original files bloke?"

(Everything is straightforward up until this point.)
Sadly, God has seen fit to give me a HP Pavillion notebook. One of the
ones they sell you without the install CD's for... anything.
Now, I actually HAVE an XP cd, maybe even a media edition one? ...but
our logy englishman will ahve none of that. "What? What? No no, the
INSTALL CD's. The ones you used to perform the original install!
Youth today."

....how screwed am I at this point?

I am not, note, averse to completely reinstalling windows. (Most of
the bundles software was shit anyway.) But I would VASTLY PREFER some
method of repairing my existing install. Does such a method exist?
Can windows be tempted with sweet smoked venison sausage into foregoing
the same-cd-match?

And, as long as I'm asking about these things- I have an external USB2
drive. If it comes down to clean-isntalling XP, will my laptop balk at
booting from an install on the external drive? (I want to install it
there ane make sure it's WORKING before I try and wipe my laptop's
internal, so if I **** it up I still have a working computer to recover
from.)

....help?

-Derik
 
Let's assume for a moment that XP is giving me problems. (Probably a
fair assumption.) and that I know I have at least a few corrupted
fires causing certain system tasks to... not work.

The fixes for these problems boil down to bringign them to windows's
attention in the correct manner whereupon it will snort like a tired
gout-ridden englishmen, blink a few times and say "Hrmph, I say hrmph,
that's just not kipper. What say you fish out your XP install cds and
we reinstall the original files bloke?"

(Everything is straightforward up until this point.)
Sadly, God has seen fit to give me a HP Pavillion notebook. One of the
ones they sell you without the install CD's for... anything.
Now, I actually HAVE an XP cd, maybe even a media edition one? ...but
our logy englishman will ahve none of that. "What? What? No no, the
INSTALL CD's. The ones you used to perform the original install!
Youth today."

...how screwed am I at this point?

I am not, note, averse to completely reinstalling windows. (Most of
the bundles software was shit anyway.) But I would VASTLY PREFER some
method of repairing my existing install. Does such a method exist?
Can windows be tempted with sweet smoked venison sausage into foregoing
the same-cd-match?

And, as long as I'm asking about these things- I have an external USB2
drive. If it comes down to clean-isntalling XP, will my laptop balk at
booting from an install on the external drive? (I want to install it
there ane make sure it's WORKING before I try and wipe my laptop's
internal, so if I **** it up I still have a working computer to recover
from.)

...help?

-Derik
Click to expand...

Always have the operating system install CD for the OS installed.
I think most techies would use a regular OS CD, not a vendor specific
one with limited options. You sound able to fix things yourself so you
should do this.
Dells come with 2 CDs, a windows one and a drivers one. You could
probably use a stadnard windows cd, and the Dell driver CD.
Perhaps similarly with your HP Pavilion.

Booting off USB would have to be an option in the BIOS, it's not
something i've ever tried, and doesn't sound like much of a permanent
solution. Most boot off USB as a novelty, like running linux off a
thumb drive.

You want to not wipe your laptop's hard drive.. Consider buying a new
laptop HDD. You can remove the current one and connect it externally.

You need a USB-IDE adaptor, and a 2.5" - 3.5" IDE adaptor cable.
You can connect any internal IDE drive externally to USB.
A 2.5" USB enclosure is like that in a case ,. perhaps with a fan.

I mention this for accessing the data from your drive.. If you wanted
to boot the drive off USB, you woudl need the option in the BIOS. But
I don't see any point in doing that.


Now.. If you do want to risk running a repair off a standard windows CD
on an HP vendor windows install, what are the risks? Well, i've never
done that. But i think that at worst, windows won't boot correctly.
It'll crash midway. But any data outside of those used by windows,
like c:\documetns and settings\.... or c:\windows, will be fine.
So if you have your data in c:\data, then I don't think a repair gone
wrong will touch that.

Even if you run a standard Windows CD and reinstall windows (which will
force you to first automatically, remove the current windows - it
won't reinstall over it like win98 would). Then *I think* your c:\data
directory will be fine. I call it c:\data, btu I mean any directory not
part of windows. Not created by windows. Anythin that was created by
windows couild be replaced(/"destroyed") by a new windows install or
repair.
 
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