XP Clean Install Question

[Guest]

My brother was in the process of doing a system restore when the power went out and shut down his computer. He's running Window's XP Home Edition
When he rebooted, he got a screen that said something about UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_DISK or something to that effect. It said to press F8 to enter the option screen for safe mode etc. but none of the choices will do anything but come to another screen (black screen w.white lettering) that say's somehting about system32/drivers. It just lists a bunch of drivers and their locality. We tried to do a F10 reformat and it starts out ok, beginning the HP PC system restore (the progress bar goes all the way) then it comes up to a blank blue screen and hangs there and does nothing.
The question I have is, can we do a clean install with the 6 bootable floppy's to get back into the computer to redo the F10 reformat and if not what can we do to reinstall the hard drive. He has no XP CD's and no backups of anything except the 6 clean install bootable floppy's

Thanks for any help
Teddy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My brother was in the process of doing a system restore when the power

went out and shut down his computer. He's running Window's XP Home Edition.

When he rebooted, he got a screen that said something about

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_DISK or something to that effect. It said to press F8 to
enter the option screen for safe mode etc. but none of the choices will do
anything but come to another screen (black screen w.white lettering) that
say's somehting about system32/drivers. It just lists a bunch of drivers and
their locality. We tried to do a F10 reformat and it starts out ok,
beginning the HP PC system restore (the progress bar goes all the way) then
it comes up to a blank blue screen and hangs there and does nothing.

The question I have is, can we do a clean install with the 6 bootable

floppy's to get back into the computer to redo the F10 reformat and if not
what can we do to reinstall the hard drive. He has no XP CD's and no
backups of anything except the 6 clean install bootable floppy's.

Thanks for any help!
Teddy

I'm afraid you do need your WinXP installation CD. It is not possible to
install WinXP without this CD. As far as his data files are concerned - he
may have to consider this unpleasant event as a forceful reminder that all
important files must be backed up every week, to an independent medium.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response Pegasus. Where would we get the WinXP Installation CD? His computer is not under warranty anymore.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the response Pegasus. Where would we get the WinXP

Installation CD? His computer is not under warranty anymore.

If you bought your computer when it was new then your dealer was under an
obligation to supply you either with a WinXP CD or with a recovery CD that
lets you restore the factory installation, plus a Microsoft licence key.

If you bought it second-hand then it's a question of "buyer beware".

In either case you can purchase a CD plus a licence from any computer shop.
Don't bother using a friend's licence number - WinXP can be registered for
one PC only.