How to run WinXP Repair after SP2

After running my monthly maintenance program on my WINXP Pro system, it took a long time to reboot and I got a flash popup message saying Windows cannot load your personal settings and is loading default settings. It then proceeded to load only about half of my desktop icons but with NO TASKBAR. Rebooting to safe mode gave me the same icons and also a blank taskbar, but when I tried to run anything, I got a message that Windows Explorer had encountered a problem and was closing followed by a permanent hourglass cursor. I figured that this needed the Windows XP Repair activity, but when I tried to run my original Win XP Pro disc, I got a message that it was aborting because the program had changed ... presumably because SP2 had been loaded. So I tried running my SP2 slipstreamed disc, and it didn't offer the Repair option, but wanted to go directly into Install. My system is over 4-years old and has so many apps installed that a reinstall is not a viable option. Is there any way to run REPAIR?

Looking in D&S, it appears that my personal settings are intact. Is this an MBR problem? What has to be done to get my normal boot running again?
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Hi, Bob you really haven't given us enough information to advise you.
However I would venture that you have several options available depending upon your resources and time.

Did you mean a list of microsoft maintenance actions like diskcleanup, or did you mean a special program or something else? Please give details.

Do you mean a repair install failed or do you mean you couldn't access the repair console?

Again do you have XP automatic repair set?

You obviously need to regain sufficient control of your pc to access the files. I understand your need to protect data. Do you also need to preserve the program installations or could you reinstall these if you had to reinstall Windows?

Can you slave the drive to another pc to read it?

Can you borrow an XPSP2 CD, any one will do for a repair install.

These would be your quickest options.

Others include changing the shell from explorer to filemon, installing a second copy of XP from you cd to effect repair, controlling the pc with another os such as linux. Depending upon the actual nature of your 'repair program' you may only need to replace a few files via the repair console.

Over to you