is there a way to reinstall windows on a HP Probook 4530s without reformatting the hard drive?

[niceprinter]

my windows is corrupted, cannot start up.

is there anyway to reinstall windows without reformatting the hard drive? I already tried taking out the harddive but have been unable to read any data from it. I get "critical hardware error" when I try and access my storage partitions. I am only able to access a 299mb "System" partition and a 4.5gb HP_Tools partition, but I cannot access main system and storage partitions.

All I want is the data on that hard drive. But I cannot access it by plugging the harddrive into another computer as external device. so is there any way to reinstall windows on the original hp probook 4530s without reformatting the hard drive?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You can reinstall Windows over the current Windows partition.  Do not delete or format any partitions.

When you get to the part of the installation process that asks 'where do you want to install windows,' install it over the current windows partition and it will create a Windows.old folder.

After Windows has completed installing, you can explore the windows.old folder find your old user profile in the users folder and copy and files and folders you need from the windows.old folder to a portable hard drive, or to the new windows installation.