My computer has been fine for over 2 years. I got a virus (never updated my subscription) and I couldn't stop it or remove it. It started acting funny one day so I went to restart it and when it came back on it said it couldn't start windows because system32 was missing or corrupt.
I didn't have a boot disc (didn't know til recently that I had to creat one from windows xp (thanks bill.
) My GF lent me the one for her computer (she has a northstar or something like that and I have a compaq sr1220xn) I used it and it installed a second version onto my computer (wouldn't format the drive cause the disc was "invalid"). so i get it running and everything works on that version. Restart my computer again and I have an option for 2 different xp's, so i go to the second one and it's mine.
I was able to recover all the things I needed to pull from my computer and than went back to the second install and tried to format the hard drive from the second windows instalation. It wouldn't let me. I borrowed her boot disc a second a time and tried again to format my hard drive, but this time the disc created a 3rd and 4th windows xp on my hard drive. I told her what happened and we decided to find xp pro online and download it. We found one with a good rating, everyone said it was great and ran smooth. She downloaded it (she has cable I have dial up, I know, I know!). She burned everything onto a dvd and put the one image file onto a disc for the boot disc. I went home and installed that and it worked, sorta. It took off one of the 4 xps and replaced it with the xp pro (still can't format my hard drive!).
I decided to manually delete the other windows from my hard drive, but it really didn't work. The files are gone, but it still gives me 4 choices when I start the computer. Oh, and the xp pro is stuck in 4 bit color and lowest screen res, no option to change it. there was something with the rest of the xp pro file where I could "roll" things and install something else, but one of the things asked for a second disc. I had my girlfriend look at it and she said there was a second image that I could burn to a disc and try to see if that's the second xp pro disc. i'm gonna try and do that later, but it means installing nero (which may be hare cause because when trying to install aol, the resolution and color being so low, I couldn't read anything. I'm so damn frustrated! I have talked to a few people who tell me to get 98 and a floppy and use that to get into dos and format from there, but the only problem is I don't have a floppy drive. If it comes down to it, I'm willing to get a prog to just totally erase everything on my hard drive and start from scratch. I plan on building myself a complete tower soon and want to save anything i can from this computer. I don't wanna junk the hard drive (even tho a new one's just a few bux) if I can manage to save it.
I need my computer now because I have a state exam to study for and I need to use the simulator cd i got from my class. I can't afford a new hard drive or software or a new hard drive for two weeks, although I did see one at Best Buy for 40 something, I think it was a 120 gig, but even so, I don't wanna end up putting a shoddy xp pro on it. Sorry for the extremely long post, but I wanted to inform you as best as I could to make answering my question as simple as possible.
Thank you all in advance,
Anthony
I didn't have a boot disc (didn't know til recently that I had to creat one from windows xp (thanks bill.
) My GF lent me the one for her computer (she has a northstar or something like that and I have a compaq sr1220xn) I used it and it installed a second version onto my computer (wouldn't format the drive cause the disc was "invalid"). so i get it running and everything works on that version. Restart my computer again and I have an option for 2 different xp's, so i go to the second one and it's mine. I was able to recover all the things I needed to pull from my computer and than went back to the second install and tried to format the hard drive from the second windows instalation. It wouldn't let me. I borrowed her boot disc a second a time and tried again to format my hard drive, but this time the disc created a 3rd and 4th windows xp on my hard drive. I told her what happened and we decided to find xp pro online and download it. We found one with a good rating, everyone said it was great and ran smooth. She downloaded it (she has cable I have dial up, I know, I know!). She burned everything onto a dvd and put the one image file onto a disc for the boot disc. I went home and installed that and it worked, sorta. It took off one of the 4 xps and replaced it with the xp pro (still can't format my hard drive!).
I decided to manually delete the other windows from my hard drive, but it really didn't work. The files are gone, but it still gives me 4 choices when I start the computer. Oh, and the xp pro is stuck in 4 bit color and lowest screen res, no option to change it. there was something with the rest of the xp pro file where I could "roll" things and install something else, but one of the things asked for a second disc. I had my girlfriend look at it and she said there was a second image that I could burn to a disc and try to see if that's the second xp pro disc. i'm gonna try and do that later, but it means installing nero (which may be hare cause because when trying to install aol, the resolution and color being so low, I couldn't read anything. I'm so damn frustrated! I have talked to a few people who tell me to get 98 and a floppy and use that to get into dos and format from there, but the only problem is I don't have a floppy drive. If it comes down to it, I'm willing to get a prog to just totally erase everything on my hard drive and start from scratch. I plan on building myself a complete tower soon and want to save anything i can from this computer. I don't wanna junk the hard drive (even tho a new one's just a few bux) if I can manage to save it.
I need my computer now because I have a state exam to study for and I need to use the simulator cd i got from my class. I can't afford a new hard drive or software or a new hard drive for two weeks, although I did see one at Best Buy for 40 something, I think it was a 120 gig, but even so, I don't wanna end up putting a shoddy xp pro on it. Sorry for the extremely long post, but I wanted to inform you as best as I could to make answering my question as simple as possible.
Thank you all in advance,
Anthony
