XP repair

[Biggun]

My Lappy is playing up pretty bad. I am thinking that a reformat is in order, but am very busy atm, so I thought I would try a repair first. I booted from disc and went to try and find the repair option, but I cant find it.
Can anyone shed some light on this or Am I better off just biting the bullet and re-formatting?

Cheers

[tagg]

After booting from the XP CD press enter on all screens till you have to press F8 to agree to the licensing it will after this screen "press R for repair" i am not sure can be done on the Home version of XP.

Tagg

[Biggun]

I have just been lookin at XP disc and it seems to be a lite version, I will have to hunt down my other copy.
When I boot from cd, and press enter, it goes straight to the format a partition bit.

[ssrattus]

You need to Press enter at setup XP, F8 to I agree and then you have the repair option.

Before you connect to the net turn on the firewall as xp is very vulnerable until the updates are done. ie if you have an old XP disc then you need to windows update all service packs etc.

for a step by step.


--- too slow! tagg got in first.

[Biggun]

There is no F8 option there! Whilst searching for my XP disc , I found my Recovery DVD's that I made when I first got lappy. I might just use those?

[Arbiter]

More info on "playing up pretty badly" would be good.
I agree with ssrattus, however if you only have a cut-down version of XP then you might need a paddle.
You've backed-up all your important "files/addresses/emails etc" & have the original installs for your fav proggies I hope?
There's no excuse these days when storage media is everywhere, either local or remote.
I'd go the reformat option and start over clean.
As ssrattus suggested, throw SP3 on it ASAP.
Get the ISO
Make sure you also have all necessary drivers for your machine prior to reformatting.
Bare minimum are Network, Graphics and Manufacturers chipset.
See your manufacturer's website for these BEFORE formatting because the buggers won't be there after you've wiped the HDD clean, however you might be lucky and the generic Windoze drivers might do temporarily.

[C-Bandit]

Just follow through as if your doing a fresh install and when it gets to the partition selection, windows will detect the old install and ask you if you want to repair.

[ssrattus]

There is no F8 option there! Whilst searching for my XP disc , I found my Recovery DVD's that I made when I first got lappy. I might just use those?

You will lose everything with recovery DVD's... ie back to the same state as when you first got it.

[Philquad]

i think he has a phill special edition xp
the repair may be disable through nlite
if you can find 1 with the R option
i don't hit it at the 1st R screen, it goes to command prompt
i wait until it shows the hard drive, then hit R option

[BCNZ]

Reformatting isn't necessary unless there is an error with the sector table etc. Just repair using the XP install disc as outlined above.

[Uncle Fester]

If you have a home version and you get your hands on an XP professional SP3, just boot the new disk and run setup. It will then ask if you want to UPGRADE.
If you chose upgrade all your proggies and settings will still be there afterwards.
A few things like special video drivers, virtual disks, etc will need to be reinstalled.
.... and of course backup vital data, game saves, bookmarks, etc just in case.

edit: Oops, I just saw the date of this thread, he has probablly passed this, might help somebody else though.

[mark_f85]

This might be a silly question, but why can't you (Biggun) try going back to a system restore point? (if your installation will let you).

[Jaz808]

If you added any Service Packs, then you need a XP with that Service Packed embedded (slipstreamed),to get the "R" for Repair option, or try ComboFix from Bleeping Computers, fixes heaps of probs, and only 3meg, then Malwarebytes and a Registry Fixer if you dont want to Format

[weirdo]

If you know what the problem is, some of these might come in handy
But like others suggested, try Repair at the second prompt.