Need Some Help Please...Urgent

[fueled_by_ramen]

I know this isn't exactly the right forum to post this problem, but the software forum looks pretty barren and I haven't gotten any replies so far there.

I was updating a PC because it only had SP1 for XP. So I popped in my SP2 install CD but something apparently went wrong. Normally I would only install SP2 on a fresh install of XP but I was lazy and didn't feel like reformatting the drive and starting from scratch. My own stupidity. But I know that the SP2 CD I used is ok because I've used it tons of times before without any problems.

Now when trying to boot up into Windows, it shows the XP loading screen for a few moments, as per usual, but then the screen goes completely blank and all you can see the mouse pointer. Nothing else. I tried rebooting several times, I tried booting into safe mode, I tried popping in XP and doing a repair install, and it still doesn't work.

I don't have any spare hard drives at the moment, so I might go out and buy a small drive tomorrow and pop it in as the master drive, re-install XP from scratch and the switch the current drive as a slave to backup the documents, but I'd like to avoid having to do that.

The current drive has 2 partitions, a C and D drive. So what I was thinking about doing was to do a fresh install but not delete the D partition. Every time I've re-installed Windows, I've always formatted the drive and deleted all of the partitions and created new ones so that things would be as fresh as possible, so I have no idea if I can just select the C partition, format it, and re-install XP without even touching the D partition.

Does anyone know if I'll be able to access the D partition after doing this so that I can backup the files and documents on it? Or will the D partition need to be formatted also? Kind of a noobish question, I know, but as I said I've never even tried doing this in the past so I'm not sure how this will pan out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[alcattle]

One thing you could try is a Live Linux CD, that will allow you to access the Hard Drive and check it out. If all your data is on D: it might even allow you to format C: then you can start over. Just an Idea?!?

 

[rob_jeffers]

HEy, i remember once i had a problem installing sp2, the problem was that my bios was out of date and didnt support sp2 so i had to get a newer bios version and that sorted my problem out, although mine was slightly different as the status bar would freze.

 

[fueled_by_ramen]

I sure hope it's not the BIOS...cuz that's a whole other can of worms to deal with.

I can't imagine that it is though, because I've installed XP and SP2 on machines much older than this PC. My own PC for example is even older and it works perfectly.

Can anyone confirm for me that if I do a fresh install of XP while not touching the D partition, will I be able to access the D partition after completing the installation? Or will the D partition also have to be formatted?

 

[loner47]

Reformat c: install xp then service pack 2 all will be good. Drive d: will still be there no need to reformat.