Hi all

My son ran a repair instal on his pc because it was bluescreening rather too much. His machine runs an up-to-date genuine XP with a Norton AV/internet security suite installed. Like a typical teen it was used for gaming and college work.

When he ran the repair instal option the machine loaded file to the machine, restarted and began the instal. About 10 minutes into the instal the machine froze he left it for a while and repeated the steps, noting that the instal now detected an earlier incomplete instal.

Eventually it started but all he has is a black background with a moveable cursor. Alt+ctr+del does nothing and safe mode does basically the same bar the blurb that tells you it's safe mode.

I ran the recovery console and tried to use bootcfg to see if we could find a way of firing to a more workable windows but to no avail. I tried running the instal again using the XP based drivers for the SATA drive and also using the F6 to use the Promise driver supplied with the MB.

The machine laods files to the drive to start the instal, resarts but then attempts to load Windows, bypassing the installation process.

How can I either

1 Complete the instal without destroying his data. He has a backup device but neglected to keep it up to date. He is 12 weeks out of date, with important(college) work on there which could lead him to failing his college course.

2 Remove the data safely to do a format/instal?

any help gratefully received

cheers


MizztAH