WinXP - i think i broke it - anyone help???

Let me mention first that I'm new to WinXP, and don't know much about it. So anyways, I was having a few Windows related problems & just thought I'd reinstall XP over top of my old installation. However, I guess Windows had its own ideas about it. I got 95% of the way thru it to where it says it's registering components, and I got a little error box about not being able to find some file. I can't remember the name of it, but it was something along the lines of uureg I think. Anyways, I figure I'll reboot & try again. No such luck. Same problem. I tried a fresh install of windows & it told me that there is already an OS at \Windows and all my things would be deleted. Is data included in this, or just registered programs won't run. I can't get back into Windows at all. Even when I try to load from the cd, and select cancel install, it loads me into setup. I'm stuck in a perpetual loop. Where should I go from here? Thanks.

 

do you have data that you need to recover?

 

there's some things i have on there that i'd like to keep, yes. will a fresh install on top of \windows wipe everything out?

 

no it will not. Typically we suggest to run the repair on XP to fix issues.

boot up with XP cd and choose repair from the menu and follow the on screen instructions.

If it works and you're able to get in, I suggest saving all the files that you need to a backup media (floppy, cd,zip, usb stick etc etc) and then wiping it and reinstalling from scratch.

 

I tried the repair, but it just puts me back into setup & gimps again. I may just try a fresh install if all my files will stay intact.

 

a fresh install to me means FORMAT.. and that will NOT save your files. I went back and re-read what you tried and it looks as though you tried a reinstall overtop of an existing install and it didn't go well.

were your drives formatted with NTFS or FAT32?

 

That's one reason why it's nice to have either 2 harddrives or 2 partitions. Always have stuff backed up. Just in case you have to do a reformat.

 

were your drives formatted with NTFS or FAT32?[/QUOTE]it's NTFS. i thought you said it wouldn't delete the data?

this is what i get when i try & do it:

my options were:

1) update the current version
2) install a new version of windows
3) exit setup

i went to perform #2 and it told me:

CAUTION: A c:\Windows folder already exists. If you continue, the existing windows installation will be overwritten.

All files, subfolders, user accounts, applications, security, and desktop settings for that windows installation will be deleted

- To use the folder and delete the existing windows installation, press L
- To use a different folder, press C
- To quit setup, press F3