I need PC help

[mickeyfan1]

My primary laptop has a corrupted file. I need to get an original XP Home CD in order to repair the file. The bootdisks from the microsoft website will not work. I have talked to microsoft and to my manufacturer and the only solution is to get an original CD of XP Home. I really don't want to spend the 300 or so dollars to but the CD. Is there a Diser who happens to have the CD that maybe would be willing to loan me in order to do the repair? I don't want to reload my original disks because I will loose all my user files. Yes, I do back them up, but not every day, I will loose a lot of stuff that I really can't afford to loose.

If anyone can help me, I would be forever grateful.

 

[kild]

When I get home from work I will look and see if I have that CD. I can't remember if I have home or professional.

 

[mickeyfan1]

Wow, thanks! It is a real pain, I have 3 computers here, but of course they all came preloaded, so no original disks.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Marsha, if I recall, XP is coded to prevent running same OS on multiple machines.

 

[shamrock bunch]

Hi Marsha!

I think I have that at home, but as Dan said, I'm not sure if they are coded to not be used on multiple machines.

 

[mickeyfan1]

Microsoft says not for the repair function, only for trying to copy it onto more than one machine. Although you can now buy "Teacher/Student" versions of MSOffice and I believe a few other OS systems which allow for up to 4 on the same license. And they are a lot cheaper. It really is a pain to go through this. I have called Toshiba and MS each 4 times, Toshiba finally said that even if I paid them, they couldn't fix the problem with out the original CD and since they embedd the OS on thier own disks, I would loose all my files. I am hoping that I can get it repaired. Otherwise I will be very sad.

 

[kild]

You can run the repair for Xp without the licensing coming into play. To be honest though, I have never seen the repair work for XP.

If you have another PC running XP you can try and correct the problem another way.

I have seen winnt\system32\xxxxx file is corrupted.
Go to the other PC running xp and copy that file to a floppy disk. Take a win98 or other boot disk and start the broken pc off of the boot disk. When the dos prompt comes up A:\, swap the disk with the good file for the boot disk in A:\
then type

copy -filename- c:\winnt\system32

restart and pray.

I have had success doing it this way. I will still look at my cd's tonight and see what I have.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I do recall a similar situation, Marsha, when I had an Acer some years back. It was back and forth with Acer and MS, and I think I ultimately did a system restore, a pain for sure. Hope you get it. As for me, all I have is XP Pro, and like you, it is imaged by Dell.

 

[Pete's Mom]

Originally posted by kild
You can run the repair for Xp without the licensing coming into play. To be honest though, I have never seen the repair work for XP.

If you have another PC running XP you can try and correct the problem another way.

I have seen winnt\system32\xxxxx file is corrupted.
Go to the other PC running xp and copy that file to a floppy disk. Take a win98 or other boot disk and start the broken pc off of the boot disk. When the dos prompt comes up A:\, swap the disk with the good file for the boot disk in A:\
then type

copy -filename- c:\winnt\system32

restart and pray.

I have had success doing it this way. I will still look at my cd's tonight and see what I have.

I had to do this to my bosses laptop today. Here is a link to the steps

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry That Prevents Windows XP from Starting

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

Hope this helps!

 

[DSNY FN]

XP does come with a cd key but if it is being used for a repair the cd key never plays into it. You can use any XP cd to do the repair etc if you try to do an upgrade with XP pro and are using another persons when you try to register it will tell you you are using an illegal copy and you need to contact your vendor or microsoft to report it. That being said there are may sites out there to get cracks etc for these things as I am sure Microsoft knows but has done nothing to shut them down. MS products continue to be one of the easiest software products to copy and use my guess is Microsoft knows this will happen and figures this if they make it this way they will lose some sales from it but gain market share by eveyone using their OS. This way they can continue to make deals with other vendors and software manufacturers for products supported by all the MS operating systems out there. They still make money and see it as outweighing the bad from losing some sales due to piracy. So if you have a neighbour that has XP home you can borrow it to fix your problem. Sorry so long just a little insight into what had been said about the product key. Just so you know I do not support copying software.

 

[mickeyfan1]

Oh boy, lots of help here. I will try to fix it tomorrow. This has given me the mother of all headaches~ As DH will be going Out of Town (again) tomorrow morning, I will have a nice quiet time to do it. If all lse fails, I do have a local guy who says he can recover all my user data and fix the problem.

Thanks to all of you for the information and links. I do know I can get to the repair step using the boot disks, it can't hurt to try the steps outlined in y'alls posts, the one that I tried from MS did not work, but it was different than what y'all have told me.

I think I need a tall cold drink and a strong pain pill.

Thanks again.

 

[mickeyfan1]

My laptop is now under repair, big time. My user files are being backed up and then I get to reload everything. Nothing worked, including having the XP Disc. This really bugs me, and all my software, with the exception of what came with the machine is in storage 15 miles away, and I will have to spend all day tomorrow in the nasty cold weather trying to find the box that it's in. One thing I have learned from this, keep my camera software here, and load it onto my second laptop.

And maybe the desktop, too.

At least I am able to save all my user files. Normally, I back everything up, too. But you never know when your machine will die, guess I will copy everything everytime I add something new.

 

[DSNY FN]

Another option when formating and re installing create a partition on the hard drive that will contain only the operating system when installing programs and saving documents store them on the other partition that way if something happens to the OS you still have all your documents etc on the second partition. Saves lots of headaches.

 

[Loubon]

Hey Marsha, send me the laptop, I'll fix it for you!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Give Drive Image a look

 

[mickeyfan1]

Originally posted by Loubon
Hey Marsha, send me the laptop, I'll fix it for you!

Hey Lou, howz about I send youz the laptop with the crapped out screen. It just needs to be replaced, and it's good to go. (Just what I need, 3 laptops!)

Thanks for the offer, I should be back in business with the old one later today.

Dan, I will look into that link, too.

Thank to all who have offered assistance. Sometimes I hate computers.