WindowXp upgrade to WindowXP...

[ko9000]

Hi there

I'm asking this quesiton for a friend of mine. Well, just recently he signed up to an internet company, everything went pretty well, he got the password, phone number, user name etc. The problem came when he try to setup a connection on his computer, he some how keep getting this 624 error while setting up the connection. We've tried reinstalling IE6, but that didn't seem to help. Well, let just say his computer have a few problems :( , eg his 'system restore' doesn't work any more :( , his 'help features' doesn't respond anymore... and also few other problems. I thought about re-formating his computer, but since he has so many important files, videos and doesn't have a cd writer, so that option wasn't very good. As most people know, when you upgrade your window from one OS to another, you won't lose your old files after the upgrade. So I suggested him 'Upgrade'/reinstall his WindowXp Pro again. I mean upgrade/reinstall by, when you start the installation for WinXp Pro, you are given an option to 'Upgrade' or to have a 'Full installation'. Because I used to have quite a few problems when Win98Se, I often uprgade/install it again (not reformat) and the problems always seem to get fixed. Though I never done it on WinXP Pro, so we went ahead re-installing/Upgrade WinXp Pro. Everything went ok, nothing went wrong, until when we have to log on into Window for the first time. The problem is, now we can't get pass the window Logon thing, it keeps coming up with an error saying something about bad product or something. Cause the WinXP Pro was a chinese version, and I can't really read it cause I sort of forgot most of it. Because he dones't understand much about computers, this was the translation I got "Window has detected a bad product(or something) 00x086450(these are not the real numbers but its something like it)"

Sorry for such a long forum :( . Does anyone know what we can do to get pass that Logon screen. One thing for sure is, we can still go into save mode. Oh yeah, he has the acutally WinXP Pro, but we install it off the back up that I made for him (I used Alcohol 120% to do it).


Thanks a lot for your time :)



ko9000

[Budfred]

You probably should have run the Repair feature rather than a reinstall and probably your best bet would be to try that now. You can find more info (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm) here....

[ko9000]

Hey thanks a lot for the site :) , would I be able to get rid of that prblem if I did that 'XP Repair Install' now? And when you meant by that I should of ran the 'Repair feature' did you mean 'Xp Repiar Install' or was that another feature in WinXP Pro?


Thanks a lot :)



ko9000

[Budfred]

I can't tell you if it would fix the problem, but it is probably your best bet... WinXP seems to get pretty strange when you do a reinstall over the current copy. This technique has always tended to destabilize Windoze over time, but it seems to be worse in XP. Fortunately, the Repair feature makes it unnecessary....

And yes, I meant the Repair Install when I said Repair feature... just an abbreviated way to refer to the same thing...

[ko9000]

Cool, thanks a lot , I'll post back the out come of it once I get his computer again (maybe in a day or two). So, reinstalling over the current of copy of OS makes it more un-stable :eek: . Wow, thank you so much for telling me that, next time I'll reformat than reinstall over the current OS. Thanks ^^


Thanks again :)



ko9000

[Abbadon]

Maybe something to keep in mind for your friend: on a partitioned hdd, with program files and data on different partitions, formating isn't such a big deal, as you lose nothing that is stored on the data partition. This has nothing to do with solving your current problem right now, but might be handy to keep in mind for the future.

[ko9000]

To Abbadon

:) Yes, his HD is partitonted into 3 drives(not with different OS for drive). Does this mean if he reformats the main drive (the drive that contains the 'Windows' folder) the stuff on the other 2 drives will remain untouch after the reformat? If so, is there any special things that I would need to do before reformating or while reformating? Or do I just tye 'format C:' in MSDOS like always?


Thanks



ko9000

[pave_spectre]

IF your only formatting the OS partition and not the data ones, then you may need to be aware of any files/folders that are configured only to allow access to certain users.

Reinstalling XP even with users with the same name/password combination may not autonatically allow those users to access files/folders that were restricted in the previous installation.

If there are no file/folder permissions in effect then it wont be an issue.

[Abbadon]

You can indeed format the c:\ partition like you said (from dos) without any changes beeing made to the other partitions. However, be aware of what pave_spectre said. It sounds like a decent cavaet but I have no experience with it myself.

Winxp-installer has a build in formatting-feature by the way so you don't realy need dos. Just pop in the disk and let the pc boot from it. Choose to install xp (no repar) and the option to select a certain partition will be given, as will the option to format it on ntfs of fat.

[valver]

you can run 'sfc /scannow' from the command prompt to repair bad system files. you will need the xp disk on hand beacause you will probably be prompted to insert it.
david

[ko9000]

Hey guys ^^

The good thing is, I managed to get the problem fixed by reformating it. It was good it only cleaned out the main drive and left the other drives untouched :) . The bad thing was, before I could tell him that if I reformat his computer, his stuff on the other drives would remain safe, he deleted everything on the other 2 drives before I could tell him that :confused: :( .

I just wanna thanks everyone again for their suggestions and ideas ^^ :) . Thanks



ko9000