How restore Windows XP

I reinstalled XP Pro a few days ago, and had just gotten to the point where everything was as I wanted it and working fine. I then downloaded and installed all of the windows updates available. When I woke up this morning and checked to make sure everything went fine, the modem (a Motorola sm56) would not work. I played with it a bit, tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it about 100 times, downloaded and tried installing a few drivers, but nothing was working. I tried to system restore to the point before I did all the updates, but the computer couldn’t complete the system restore. I tried several earlier points, but system restore wouldn’t do a thing for me.

Frustrated, I went to Add/Remove and manually removed all of the hotfixes and windows updates. That is when the real trouble begin. Now, my computer won’t even load XP. It gets to the black screen that says XP Professional on it, and then reboots itself, and continues this cycle until I turn the thing off. I tried starting in safe mode, but it spurts out a long list of devices and then restarts itself. If anyone knows anything useful, that would be very appreciated. I just want to get back to where I was 24 hours ago!!

This question was answered on October 18, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Have you tried repairing your installation of Windows XP?

Running Windows Setup from the Windows CD can often repair a damaged Windows installation.

To repair your installation of Windows

Place the Windows XP CD in the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive

If the Windows CD displays the What would you like to do? menu, click Exit

Turn off your computer, wait ten seconds, and then turn your computer back on

If you are prompted to start your computer from the CD, do so

After Windows XP Setup starts, press ENTER to continue the setup process

Press ENTER to choose the option To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER Do not choose the Recovery Console option

Press F8 to accept the licensing agreement

At this point, the Setup program will search for previous installations of Windows XP If Setup does not find a previous installation of Windows XP, then you might have a hardware failure Click No, I still have a problem when I try to start Windows below, and then click Next to continue troubleshooting

If Setup does find a previous installation of Windows XP, then the following message will appear:

" If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, setup can try to repair it.

Use the up and down arrows to select an installation.

To repair the selected installation Press R.

To continue without repairing, Press Esc."

Choose the appropriate installation of Windows XP, and then press R to attempt to repair it

Follow the remaining directions on your screen

Notes

You might need to change the boot drive sequence in your BIOS settings in order to successfully start your computer from the Windows CD Contact the manufacturer of your computer, or see your manufacturer's documentation, for more information

If you are unable to start your computer from the Windows XP CD, then you might have a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive failure or other hardware failure

About the author

Posted by gilbert of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on October 18, 2004

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