Repairing Windows XP - please help!

[ghostwalker]

Sorry if this is not the right place to post this but...


So my brother came back from uni the other day and told me that his computer was dead and asked me to have a look at it for him. It seems that it won't boot and just keeps restarting. I set it up as a slave drive in my own PC, booted into Windows XP (on my PC) and could open it fine from there and access the files on it. Am I right in thinking that this is then a problem with Windows XP and perhaps it's been corrupted? What's the best way to repair it? And can I do it whilst it's still set up as a slave drive?

Thanks.

 

[MezzFA0]

Easiest way is to plug it back into the original PC. Boot from the XP cd. Press Enter to install XP (this won't overwrite). Then theres an option to repair Install.

This will run through a quick install process preserving settings. You may need your cd key to hand and you will most likely have to windows update again but otherwise its relatively intact.

One thing to note is that although it may have been some random crash that killed it, it can also be an indicator that the hard drive is on the way out so keep an eye on it.

 

[g-paw]

In addition to Windows or the hdd could also be the PSU, try another one if not Windows