unable to reinstall windows xp pro

[sisterdiane]

My systme failed. I cannot re-install windows xp pro.
It will not get passed a certain point in the process.
It asks for the windows xp pro sp1 cd. I downloaded this
info onto a cd but it will not read this information. I
really need someone's help. I'm the principal of a
school with 9 years worth of data on my hard drive. Yes
I've backed it up. I need this machine to work. Please
help!!!!! Thank you.

 

[Roger Abell]

The XP Sp1 CD it is asking for is a full XP
product CD that came with Sp1 included within
the files.
It is not asking for a CD with Sp 1 on it.
Evidently you are doing an upgrade repair install
and it wants the CD from which the system was
originally installed.
Whether an upgrade install will pull the machine
out of its current failure state depends on what has
failed. How is it that "it failed"? What happens now
when you try to start it using the existing install ?

Depending on why it failed, you may have ability to
recover with an upgrade repair install, or you may
have a situation where this will not be possible, or
you may have a situation from which you can recover
without any kind of install, or you may have a hardware
issue, etc. IOW do not jump to conclusion that you do
need to reinstall.

If all else fails, provided you have sufficient space
you can do an install into a different partition, or
new directory, in order to get at the files and copy
them off to somewhere. Then it would be needed
to do a fresh install that wipes out all the mess from
the old install and the temp one used to get the files
An alternative to this is to hang the disk temporarily
onto a working system as a secondary drive and use
the NTFS capable OS of the working system to get
your data copied out before replacing the disk into
the failed system and then performing a fresh install.

However, the first thing to do is to determine why
the system failed, and whether you can recover that
system without the extremes of a reinstall.