this is a new one for me.

I have a system here that a customer brought in and first of all it shouldn't have xp on it at all because the hardware is so old...

the problem is that it is missing .sys files on bootup. I removed the HDD and installed it in another system so I could transfer in the .sys files that were missing. I expanded the files needed from an OEM CD of xp pro and dumped them into the \system32\drivers directory from where they were suppoesed to be missing... that didn't work

so I thought I'd try a repair install... I set the BOIS to boot from the CD drive and it looks like the system tries to but when the screen shows up that it found a bootable CD instead of saying something like "press any key to boot from cd....." it just says "failure" and goes back to the missing files screen.

so... I tried thought maybe a set of boot disks would do the trick (I know I know boot disks are archaic technology but they still come in handy on rare occasions.) well I created the 6 disk set and the system boots to the first floppy but then throws some weird error...

I'm lost... I can't find anything else online and rather than bash my head against the wall I figured I'd ask. (against man law I know but hey... what are ya gonna do?)

any ideas!?!?

spence