A
Anna
sandy j said:
sandyj:
I'm virtually certain that you would *not* be able to undertake a Repair
install of your present XP OS using a Win XP Pro x64 edition installation
CD.
There are times when it's useful to repeat the Repair install of the OS
when the initial undertaking has to be aborted for one reason or another.
We've even found it, i.e., the Repair install, to be successful on a third
attempt after the first two failed.
I suppose it's possible that the XP installation CD you're using has become
defective because of some physical event and that's causing the problem re
the inability to copy certain files from the CD. We've found this to be a
very rare occurrence unless the CD has been physically abused. But it is
possible. If you could get your hands on another CD that is the identical
version of the XP OS edition installed on your PC you could give that a try.
The problem here are those two files which you've indicated are very
important, if not crucial, for you to retrieve. When you undertake
operations such as chkdsk /r or a Repair install, there's a danger that
these processes (when they fail) will cause further corruption of the system
to the point where it becomes harder & harder (if not practically
impossible) to retrieve data from the affected drive. It's something to keep
in mind when one is particularly concerned with (at the minimum) retrieving
data from the system.
That is why we generally recommend at the outset that the user *first*
attempt to retrieve data (if at all possible) by connecting the affected
drive as a secondary HDD in another working system and attempt to access its
data through that means. Or better yet, use a disk-cloning program to create
a clone of the affected drive so that you always have a duplicate copy of
the problem drive to work on.
But you have indicated that you're not comfortable with connecting your
problem drive in another system. Obviously you have another PC at your
disposal. Is there any chance you could simply uninstall the problem HDD
from your desktop machine, install it in a USB external enclosure and simply
connect it to your other PC as a USB-connected device? Then try to access
its contents?
Anyway, the Repair install, needless to say, is not always successful for a
variety of reasons. It may be that the system is so corrupted that the
Repair install simply cannot correct the situation. And it's possible that a
hardware issue may be the cause of the problem you're experiencing. A prime
suspect in this kind of case is the hard drive. It may simply be defective.
You might want to check out the disk by using a HDD diagnostic utility
that's generally freely available from the website of the disk's
manufacturer. The downloaded program will allow you to create a bootable
floppy disk or bootable CD which will test the disk to determine if it's
defective.
Assuming it's not a hardware issue causing the problem and the Repair
install is unsuccessful in the end, you may have no recourse but to simply
fresh-install the OS with the consequent loss of your programs & personal
data.
Anna