XP "repair" install help needed....

[John Prophet]

I have never ran the "repair" option on the Xp Home cd.

A guy called me, he is having trubs with his XP Home system....I has reloaded XP Home for him wayyyyy earlier in the year.....I guess I didnt make restore cd's for him...but anyway.

Now he is getting a lot of lockups....always locking up on him and he has to reset it to reboot etc.

I told him he may just have to go with another fresh re-install but that he could try to do "repair" installation first.

He wants me to come out and do that, probably later today or tomorrow.

I have never done a "repair"....will it possibly fix his issue or is it looking like a fresh install is needed?

How long does a 'repair" take? (its a Dell P3-733-900 or in that range, with added memory)

And of course, he wont lose personal info will he? (I am sure he wont, cuz I wont format, lol..but just checking)

Thanks, JP

[Droppyale]

You can try the repair option, I'm sure it will help, and no, he will not loose any personal info....

The repair option takes me around 20min? something like taht.

[JohnE.]

I always skip the first "Repair this installation" option that the WinXP disc gives and use the second "Press R to Repair" option that comes up. Sorry, I forget why that's important at the moment... maybe someone else can refresh the old brain bucket?

[DallasDon]

Yeah, change the first boot device to cd, and load from cd. The first repair option takes you to the com prompt, you gotta know the dos commands. Sorry to day I don't.

Windows will check the hard drive, find the existing windows, and ask if you want to install in free space, format, or repair. something lik that. The "second" repair option cleans up the mbr and registery, no loss of data, if I remember correctly.

Seach this thread with repair Windows as a keyword. Several threads out there.

[John Prophet]

So basically the first R is just the "recovery console".......yeah, I have used it before, just to check it out etc.

Ill try it on a spare machine just to see whats up with it.

Thanks, JP