Xp hangs and reboots it self when is booting- bluescreen

[patricio rosalin]

it stops loadiing a sys file that could be a device driver.
the thing is that says " registry error" bluescreen and
reboots it doesnt allowme to take note the hardware error
or the 000000x error code.
the only why i can boot is thru cd with the recovery
console but there is not much to do.
i have reinstalled XP in another folder and works fine,
but i would like to recover all the settings and installed
programs from the old installation.
Is there a way to fix it or reinstalling on top of the old
installation in order to maintain computer id, programs
and users?
thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Patricio.

I can't guess what caused your original problem, but it sounds like you need
to do an "in-place upgrade", also known as a repair reinstall.

One thing worries me, though. You said, "i have reinstalled XP in another
folder and works fine". You should always install additional copies of
Windows (any version) into a separate volume (primary partition or logical
drive in an extended partition - on any physical drive), rather than into a
second folder in the same volume.

At this point, if you want to recover all the settings in your original
installation, I think you should first delete the second installation (by
removing its entire "boot folder", including all subfolders and files in
it), even though it "works fine", and then do the in-place upgrade to your
original installation, following the instructions from Microsoft in this KB
article:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341

Note that this procedure is NOT intended as a time-saver. It will take just
about as long as a new install, and you will need to visit Windows Update as
soon as you get your firewall and antivirus working again and get back
online. Currently, there is SP1 plus many post-SP1 fixes that you need to
download and install. When I did this a month or so ago, the Updates took
an hour or two, even with broadband. If your WinXP CD-ROM has SP1 already
installed, that should save an hour or so. Still, you'd better plan on half
a day for the whole project.

Any changes you made while booted to your second copy of WinXP will probably
be lost unless you've backed them up in some way. But it should preserve
all your original installed applications and data, and maybe some of your
original "tweaks".

RC