You didn't leave a floppy in there by mistake, did you? (I know it's a long shot, but still a common cause of boot failure.)
Hopefully this isn't your computer you trade on. If this is the computer you trade on...why didn't you make a backup copy (weekly or monthly) of your entire hard-drive??? Regardless, just clean your hard-drive (reformat) and then re-install your original default files from the CD that came with the computer. If this computer is still under warranty...send it back and have them reformat it and reinstall all the files as if you just purchased it brand new. Of course your going to lose all your important personal data but that's the price you pay for not doing routine backups. Consider this a lesson well learn and go buy yourself a external hard-drive or second computer (these things are cheap these days) to do routine backups of your primary computer. Simply, your wasting valuable time trying to do all these go arounds especially if this is your primary system you trade on. It's possible this sketchy software is preventing all these go arounds from working. Reason why you need to start fresh (reformat) and make it a habit to do routine backups on either a external hard-drive or second computer prior to any new software installation... Sketchy or not. Mark
You could get another HD and do a fresh install of WinXP. Then mount your current drive as D:\, and see if you can recover your data.
I can get to the data using linux or a new copy of windows on this hard drive. I'm just trying to figure out how to boot into my previous copy of windows and/or repair it so I don't have to reinstall everything.
I have a recent backup of the system created with windows backup. I just don't see any option to use it when the computer won't boot. And no this is not my primary trading computer.
Its time for you to go out and get another computer. Dont fool around with it any longer. Everyday the computer is messed up is another day of profit lost. Computers are cheap, go down and get yourself a new one. If the computer is having problems now then it will have more in the future. Whatever you do right now is a bandaid, it will have more problems. When and if you do get a new computer, get the servicing plan. I dont like Dells, but I do like their service plan. My company laptop went down and they had a service man at my door within 24 hours. Problem fixed.
Hi, I wasn't referring to Windows backup on a problematic computer. I'm talking about a backup that's in a different location from your problematic computer such as a external hard-drive or a second computer. What good is a Windows backup if the computer won't reboot or the hard-drive is damaged??? No good at all. Reason why if you had a backup on a separate computer or on a external hard-drive... No matter what goes wrong with the problematic computer, reformat it or buy a new internal hard-drive and copy your backup system from your external hard-drive or secondary computer... You'll have a working computer with no problems with only a few hours lost. Glad to know this isn't your primary system and it shouldn't prevent any lost trading time. Mark
Ok, my entire hard drive is intact so there's no data missing. I can copy the whole thing to a network drive if I decide to do a clean install. I am currently running windows from the C:\WINDOWS.0 directory. There was no where in the reinstall that gave me an option to install over the original copy that is still in C:\WINDOWS This has become an academic experiment at this point. There should be a way to get the system to boot into the original copy of windows. I belive it lies somewhere with boot sectors and the registry and if I find out how to do it I'll post it back here as it may be of value to someone. BTW, I tried the information week article again with a XP HOME upgrade install disc and it still did not give me the option to repair. Maybe you need a full purchased copy of XP PRO for that option to work.
OK LAST post. I am now running in my original copy of windows with all my programs functioning. Running in the new copy of windows that I installed I was able to restore a system state backup from Windows backup that I created in July. Yes, I wasted a huge amount of time figuring this out but it worked.