Windows XP Recovery

[FreakinOut]

I've got a Compaq  V5000 with Windows XP.  When I boot up it reaches the Media or XP screen but doe not make it to Windows.  It Defaults to the screen w/ start up up options such as Start in Safe Mode, Normal Start, and Start in Mode that last operated correctly. No matter which option I choose, it fails and goes back to Main PW screen.When it first happened a message flashed on the screen about a missing or corrupt , system file 32 and to install The Recovery disk and press R.  Well of course I don't have the disk.  I also do not have backups & cannot make them since I can't access Windows.   My question is, without the disk, are there anyother ways to Recover without losing my data or having to reformat the hard drive.

I have seen some options from HP by hitting F11 during bootup and a recovery menu appears, I am leary of data loss though. And is this work the same for Compaq?  What happens if I use Setup Defaults  in the Setup Utility Screen?   Whoever can recommend the best option will be greatly appreaciated, if they have one where I can save my two years of data.AARRRGH....I do know I can order the Recovery disk from HP, don't know if I lose data.  Is it safe to use a Recovery Disk from another model HP Desk top?  I know this is a Novel, but I'm throwing ideas out there to get the best Solution.

Thanks to all who read my book! 

Kevin

[1badGuard]

If your able to run recovery from F-11 then indeed do so. If you perform a standard recovery it will restore system files and will leave your files intact.

[TheOldMan]

If you are uneasy about running the F11 restore utility before getting your data, you could always pull the data you want or need to save.  People tend to not make backups of their data because "it will never happen to me".  There are ways to get the data.  If you have another working computer, you can put the suspect drive in that computer as a slave and copy the data to a safe location or put the drive in an external enclosure and copy the data to a CD or DVD with another computer, etc. Or put another hard drive in the computer you have, if you do not have another or a friend with one, and install the OS on the new hard drive and then use the above methods to retrieve your data.  OR get a Live Linux CD and run that in your computer and move the data to a different location such as CD or DVD.  As long as the data and hard drive are still intact you should be good to go.

[Pleaj.. Request]

I have Windows XP on my Compaq Presario Model: SR1720IL. Now, somehow certain Spyware came into the PC through Internet even though I had the Cyberdefender running on the PC. Now, due to the spyware the computer got a problem of restarting on running the spyware scan and on opening ebay etc.

So, I decided to reformat the C drive on which Windows XP was running and reinstall it from the CD. So, on rebooting from the CD I pressed ENTER at the "Welcome to Setup" screen and then pressed F8 to agree to the license. Next, there was an option to Repair my existing installation or Install a fresh copy. So, I pressed ENTER to Install a fresh XP. Now, I pressed D to delete the C Drive Partition on which Windows XP was installed then, pressed L to confirm the delete. Later, I pressed C on the un-partitioned space to create the new partition and it already showed the maximum space available so, I pressed ENTER. Then, I chose NTFS to Format the partition. After the format as I pressed enter to go ahead with the installation of Windows XP on C Drive just a few seconds later a Blue screen appeared showing: A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

Page_Fault_In_Nonpaged_Area with the Technical Information: STOP: 0x00000050 (0xE95D5618, 0x00000000, 0x8081882C, 0x00000002)

 

I wonder why it showed that Windows has been shut down because I had already formatted the C Drive containing the Windows XP and its reinstall was still in process.

 

Now, later I realized that my system was a FAT32. So, I again did the same procedure and converted it into FAT32 from NTFS but still the same screen appeared and I am unable to install the Windows XP any longer. The system's hardware is absolutely fine because I had started using it a fresh since 2 weeks back only, and it was doing wonderfully well before that spyware came in.

 

Please help me, what to do next as I have never seen or heard of such an error earlier. Also, I had stored my DATA from C Drive to E Drive how can I access that?