HELP ME!!! XP installation gone bad!
 

I ordered my girlfriend a new computer. She didn't want to format so I figured I'd try the old "uninstall all drivers, delete hardware in device manager" routine in safe mode and then upgrade the hardware. I've did it before flawlessly when I upgraded my mobo, ram, and CPU. Well, I did the aforementioned and upgraded my girlfriend's mobo, CPU, ram, and videcard, and Windows XP Pro simply won't boot. It gets to "start normally, safe mode, safe mode with networking, last known good configuration, etc." screen and it resets no matter what you choose after that. So I put in the XP CD and attempted to repair the XP installation.

The repair asked for a bunch of files that are usually in service pack 1, which isn't on my XP Pro CD. I skipped those files, and sure enough, Windows still won't boot (even though it will get to the loading screen and just sit there forever).

After waiting for 20 minutes at the loading screen, I took the HDD out of her PC and put it in another. I booted the other PC up and accessed her hard drive from my computer. She wants her files from the desktop. She was using her own user account that was password protected.

When I try to access her documents and settings folder, it says "access denied." I can't get to the files she had on her desktop from the other PC!!

What can I do? How do I get files off of a hard drive that is NOT corrupted, just with a bad XP installation. Putting the HDD into another computer won't work because it gives an access denied error and using the XP repair feature didn't work either.

Should I try to create a slipstreamed XP CD and repair it again, or is there a program or something I can use to get to her files and burn them before formatting?

She had years of files in a folder or two on her desktop and I can't get to them. Any comments or suggestions are highly appreciated. I may know a good deal about PC hardware, but when it comes to Windows errors, I'm clueless.

ouchie.... you reallly reallly should have any computer backed up before trying to do anything like that..... i would try throwing the hard drive in another computer and yanking the files from it that way??

are you accessing her files and folders from her account with that password?

if your not, and using the admin settings, you'll have to delete the account to get to the files... but that method sometimes makes errors i've heard

*shrug*

I've always been able to access all files on an inactive partition. Make sure you are logged in on your comp as an admin :)

When that fails, try the repair :)

Oy.

Take ownership of that documents and settings. Get properties, security tab, yada. If it won't let you then boot in safe mode and try again.

Oh. Whoops. I forgot about safe mode :)

Gonna try that in a few minutes..."use simple sharing" will be turned off. Wish me luck. :thumbsup:

This is why you shouldn't listen to your girlfriend and next time just format the damn thing. It's just about the easiest (and only) fix for many windows XP problems.

Since when is formattin' a hard drive the solution for recovering files?

This is the time when backing up and reformatting wouldn't actually have been that big a pain....

I don't have a solution for you, but I feel your pain.

Does anyone know if the Linux NTFS driver respects things like passwords? If not you can just mount the hard drive using a livecd and then copy the data out.

It worked. :) All data is backed on up CDs now and already copied into the new PC. I spent $350 on the PC and it runs Oblivion at high settings. Am I a genious or what! :)

high settings at 3fps or 30fps

:lol:

congrats on getting it working though, perms can be bitches some times

That was going to be my suggestion. Knoppix is a wonder for computer repair, I always keep several copies of it around for occasions like these.

It runs it at the default "high" settings when it detects your hardware at about 30-45 FPS. I haven't seen it run outdoors though...that's a different matter!

heh, yeah outside is brutal on my 6800 ultra, so are some of the mass combats, its hard to fight off 30 people at 2 fps.