XP won't boot - just C:\>

[VS]

Hi,

My parents system is in trouble. When they start it up, the WinXP screen
flashes for a second, then all they have is the C:\> prompt.

I thought this might be the Blaster Worm, but the McAfee and Symantec
utilities wouldn't run in DOS (I got them to copy them off of a floppy).
Next, we got it to boot off of the WinXP cd-rom, but they never got the
repair option. It didn't recognize the previous install, and didn't even
see the volume (partition) name. The only option is to install XP with a
choice of formatting or not.

I don't want them to lose their data, so I'm hesitiant to have them try
to just reinstall XP on top of the old version. I'm afraid they may lose
info such as their email (they use Outlook Express) and other data.

Can anyone make any suggestions as to what else to try? My current idea
is to have them buy a new harddrive, install XP fresh on that, hook the
old one up as a slave (shouldn't be a boot up conflict, since that's
kind of the problem now), then try to copy the data off of the old drive
to the new (for things like email, we'll just have to figure out what
the data files are).

Thanks in advance for any info or insight with this problem.



VS

 

[S.Sengupta]

Hi!VS!
"If the Repair Option is not Available"
visit:-
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#warning2
and do accordingly.
regards/
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

 

[VS]

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#warning2
and do accordingly.

Hi,

I'm going to try walking them through Charlie White's article. I just
hope they didn't disable System Restore on their system.


Thanks,
VS

 

[GIKI CIKMAZ]

Install the XP in different folder. Original folder is
Windows, than install it folder that you will create such
as WIN123 donot use too many character.

Once WinXP install in new folder, will start. Go to
C:\Documants and Setting\??????

and find out your parent MyDocuments folder. Save their
data into floppy/ZIP/ or CD-R etc.

Then reformet whole system and install the winXP. restore
copying and pasting their data. Lets simple.

By the way if they save their data other than MyDocuments
such as in somewhere in ProgramFiles or Windows still you
can recover.

Rgds,
GC