Windows woes

[[AK]Hylander]

Here's a side question for you - I thought WinXP had built in CD writting - yet I had to install Nero to actually back anything up onto DVD. Is there an option I missed or is DVD writting not supported by native WinXP?

It only works for CD as far as I know. I almost always use Nero as I've had a few misc issues with the default Windows writing.

Any tips on how I can do that?

Ouch, it sounds like to me you had some bad sectors on your old hard drive that had the system files on it. Did you ever attempt to boot into safe mode and do a restore?

As far as getting your other files, you should be able to access them even if the account was password protected, unless you used encryption - then you might have a problem.

Sorry I don't have any other useful advice. I have a pretty robust backup routine so whenever I have a Windows problem... I just blow it all away and reinstall from scratch which still sucks, but it's better than messing around to fix a hosed install.

[[AK]Clay]

Thanks Scot - good suggestion on the safe mode. Unfortunately I still get the error message that system file is corrupt when doing so - along with the message that if I insert the WinXP CD and select R for repair it will do so (which didn't work).

Also, when I go to C:\Documents and Settings\User1, it tells me User1 is not accessable and that access is denied.

[[AK]Choozoo]

hit F8 when you start windows, select "Last Known Good"

if it doesn't work from there, try this:

boot into safe mode, command prompt option.
issue these commands:

"cd C:\Windows\System32\Config"
"copy system system.old"
"copy system.sav system"

This shows a corruption in the registry.
If you still are having issues, I'll talk to you tonight online to get this figured out.

[[AK]Clay]

Thanks Chooz - some interesting new options. I was able to rename files as you say - though ended up having to do so by first booting into the new install of WinXP.

Upon reboot and selecting the option to boot into safe mode, then selecting the old (bad) version of XP to boot into - it gave me a new error message:
"Windows XP cannot run under Safemode. Setup will restart now"

So restart into regular mode and selecting the old (bad) WinXP.
"Fatal Error - an error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing. Internal setup data structures are corrupted (phase 0)"