Windows XP Home Nightmare on Elm Street

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Cramblit
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Joe Cramblit

Got a MAJOR combination of problems.

Running XP Service Pack 2
#1 My Installer is trashed
I have done everything imaginable short of a hammer to fix it. I have run
every Microsoft fix available. I have run a dozen others as well. I have run
registry cleaners up the ying yang. I get several different error numbers.
The most consistent is #1721. I have renamed all the msi files. They have
been reinstalled. The new ones are broken as well. I've tried installing the
Installer 3.1 with no change. I've read that you cannot really install 3.1 if
you have service pack 2 installed.

#2 I cannot UNINSTALL anything, therefore I cannot unistall/re-install
service pack 2 which might solve the problem.

#3 My computer will now (this is new ... used to work) not boot to the
Windows CD, even though the boot sequence shows the CD as #1. I get no
options to boot from CD even with the Windows CD in the drive. It just goes
right into Windows XP. Because of this I cannot run a "repair" on my Windows
installation. The CD appears to be working fine. It auto starts the Windows
CD and everything is readable on the disk.

Basically I am totally screwed from several directions. Do I have ANY
OPTIONS other than spending days wiping out my hard drive and re-installing a
hundred programs? Of course, I'm not sure I'll even be able to re-install
Windows if I can't get the damn computer to boot to the Windows CD.
 
Joe Cramblit <Joe Cramblit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Basically I am totally screwed from several directions. Do I have ANY
>OPTIONS other than spending days wiping out my hard drive and re-installing a
>hundred programs?

If you had performed regular daily backups with a program such as
Acronis True Image, you'd be about 30 minutes away from a successfull
restart.
 
The function to boot from CD is primarily controlled from the BIOS, not from
within XP. Thus, whether XP is alive, dead, or even if you remove the hard
drive, you should be able to boot from the XP CD.

So, go into the BIOS setup and be sure that the boot order is (1) floppy, if
you have one, (2) CDROM, (3) hard drive.

Then, if you have a "REAL" XP CD, insert it and reboot.

However, if you have a major brand computer (e.g., Dell, Gateway), the CD
may not be a real XP CD. Instead it might be part of a program to restore
the original installation from a hidden partition or similar. If this is
the case, contact the support group of the PC maker for instruction on how
to do a restore. Or, if they determine that a restore is not possible, then
ask about yo0u sending them the hard drive and their "blasting" it with a
new image, or perhaps sending a new hard drive with a new image already
installed. Depending on the age of the computer, they may charge for some
of these services.

If a real XP CD, and you use the repair option, all personal files should be
preserved. But, how lucky do you feel? Make a backup of any important
files, before attempting a repair. (See lower down on how, without XP
working.) After the repair, perform Windows Update as many times as is
required to download and inastall all critical updates issued after the date
of the CD.

If a real XP CD, but OEM-type and thus maybe no repair option, you can
re-install XP, which will start by formating the hard drive. All personal
data will be lost, as will all installed programs and updates. See comment
above about Windows Update.

If non-XP CD, meaning a restoration CD, if it works, you will lose all
personal data and programs/updates after the day you received the PC.
However, programs pre-installed at the factory should be part of the
restored image. See comment above about Windows Update.

As for how to rescue data, when XP is not working, the answer is to use a
bootable CD with some other operating system. In particular there are many
free LINUX CDs that can boot a PC, without writing anything to the hard
drive. Many can copy files off of the internal drive to an external drive.
Some can read the NTFS file system used by XP. My favorite is KNOPPIX,
since it feels like windows and is full-featured. But, it is a large
download, about 700 Meg for the CD version, larger for the DVD version.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Main_Page

Other, smaller LINUX "live CDs" can be found at:
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

Most live CDs download as an "ISO" image. To get onto a CD you need
software that supports "burn from image", such as Nero or Easy CD Creator.
XP itself can not do this, even if it is working normally. The CD can be
burned on any PC, and should work on any other PC of modern vintage.




"Joe Cramblit" <Joe Cramblit@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:293D199B-F741-4E03-83F7-081CF94D7D10@microsoft.com...
> Got a MAJOR combination of problems.
>
> Running XP Service Pack 2
> #1 My Installer is trashed
> I have done everything imaginable short of a hammer to fix it. I have run
> every Microsoft fix available. I have run a dozen others as well. I have
> run
> registry cleaners up the ying yang. I get several different error numbers.
> The most consistent is #1721. I have renamed all the msi files. They have
> been reinstalled. The new ones are broken as well. I've tried installing
> the
> Installer 3.1 with no change. I've read that you cannot really install 3.1
> if
> you have service pack 2 installed.
>
> #2 I cannot UNINSTALL anything, therefore I cannot unistall/re-install
> service pack 2 which might solve the problem.
>
> #3 My computer will now (this is new ... used to work) not boot to the
> Windows CD, even though the boot sequence shows the CD as #1. I get no
> options to boot from CD even with the Windows CD in the drive. It just
> goes
> right into Windows XP. Because of this I cannot run a "repair" on my
> Windows
> installation. The CD appears to be working fine. It auto starts the
> Windows
> CD and everything is readable on the disk.
>
> Basically I am totally screwed from several directions. Do I have ANY
> OPTIONS other than spending days wiping out my hard drive and
> re-installing a
> hundred programs? Of course, I'm not sure I'll even be able to re-install
> Windows if I can't get the damn computer to boot to the Windows CD.
 
Thanks Mr. Harris.

To Uncle Grumpy selling his brand of backup software and the if only ... "if
only" my dick was a foot long I'd be a porno star.
 
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