Caput Hard-drive

crompton

okie dokie

crompton

so is he going to have to buy windows from a box? if so is it worth buying vista instead of xp

DrSmutt

crompton wrote:

so is he going to have to buy windows from a box? if so is it worth buying vista instead of xp

not if hes still got his key sticker on the computer and hasnt change to much hardware.

Copies these files from the old HDD.

located in the windows\system32

wpa.bak
wpa.dbl

install windows to a new HDD as normal then when it askes about activation dont bother.

boot to safe mode and copy the 2 files back and it should be all activated.

crompton

ive got his base unit with me now, when i boot it up it says :
Windows could not start, "\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" is missing.

Repair by using an original xp setup CD-ROM
Select 'R' at first screen.

I pop in windows xp setup disc, turn pc on. Disc loads. I select r.

Setup didnt find any hard drives. Make sure they are connected properly and powered on. Make sure disc related hardware is connected properly. So i open it up and theres 2 hard drives. Is my only option to connect them one at a time and copy the data back?

Could i find which one has the missing files/folder and copy the ones from my hard drive to his?

albertross_2

you say his HD died, but it's not physical.. if it's not physical, it's not dead, and therefore logical, which can normally be fixed with chkdsk c: /F/R

crompton

i cant load windows up though to do that.

albertross_2

Does safe mode work? Do you have an XP boot disk available.

When you say it can't load windows, what comes up on screen after boot?

crompton

the message i posted at 4:09, booting to safe mode now

crompton

the message i posted at 4:09, booting to safe mode now, safemode doesn't work and neither does last known good configuration

albertross_2

Ok, that wasn't there when I started typing.. def logical problem.