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XP CD doesn't offer repair option

XP CD doesn't offer repair option

I'm fixing an IBM Thinkpad laptop running XP Pro which doesn't boot all the way (It gets past the XP logo boot screen, a movable mouse cursor appears, and it doesn't get any further, even in safe mode) after being bumped a bit.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 286
Total answers/comments: 1
Guest [Entry]

"I found myself in the same situation. I ended up going to the recovery console, and I ran chkdsk c: /r. It found some errors in a registry file, and after it repaired them, I was able to boot from my XP disc and see the Repair option.

After I ran the repair, it said Windows had not been activated, but it wouldn't bring up the activation dialog until I rebooted into Safe Mode, uninstalled IE8 from c:\windows\ie8\spuninst, and then rebooted one more time. The reason the activation dialog wouldn't come up was that the repair left IE in an unusable state with both IE6 and IE8 files. You may also need to remove IE7 from c:\windows\ie7\spuninst.

After all that, I was able to activate and then continue by installing all of the missing updates."