[sobroken]

Hi,

Big problem I'm hoping someone can help me with. This morning my stepmother checked her emails on my laptop (XP Home) and while she was doing it, a virus warning popped up from my Virus checker. Instead of doing the smart thing and clicking "delete" or "quarantine" she STUPIDLY clicked "ignore".

When I went back and tried to log on later, the XP login screen won't take my password. It keeps insisting that it's wrong. I tried to log in on Safe Mode and access the Administrator account but the whole system rebooted as soon as I clicked on it.

Please help, I am utterly desperate and I don't want to have lost everything!

[ozrom1e]

You might have to remove the hard drive from this computer and install it in another computer as a slave drive and after it is able to be accessed by Windows on that computer you will have to manually backup all of your important data that you have to another media like CD-R's, DVD or Thumb drive. Then when this is done return it to the original computer as a master drive on the primary IDE cable and do the following:

I hope you have the Windows software for this machine. Please use Internet Explorer to view this article

Microsoft KB - How to perform a clean boot in Windows XP =
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;310353

[sobroken]

Oh dear, that is way above my level of expertise.

Is that my only hope, or is there any way you can think of that won't involve opening my laptop?

Thanks very much for your help, I really appreciate it.

[sobroken]

Also, when you say about the XP disc, would this be included in my Recovery Disks? They are the only ones I got with my laptop ...

[Rich-M]

If it's a few year old Dell then you may have an actual XP cd disguised as a restore disk. If not then a restore disk won't do it so Ozrom1e really has your only solution to save data and you need to restore wiping out everything if that is all you have.

[sobroken]

Unfortunately, it's a Sony Vaio so I guess I don't have that option.

What about if I borrowed an XP disc from someone? Would that work or not because it's not the same serial as the one installed on my laptop?

What about something like this:
http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm

Would anything included on that help?

[srhoades]

The ultimate boot cd is the way to go. It has a dos version of AVG, although I don't know how updated it is.

[sobroken]

Great! Unfortunately, to make one, I have to have an XP disc. Which leaves me back where I started.

Would borrowing one from someone be legal? I don't want to discuss it here if it's too naughty.

[Rich-M]

If you had an XP disk that was exactly the same i.e. XP Home full, then you can use it with your product code according to many here, yes.

[sobroken]

How would I know what my product code is? I didn't get any physical discs with my laptop, only a recovery partition which I had to make the discs from. Therefore, I don't think I got a serial number for XP printed on anything. Would there be any other way of finding this out?

[Rich-M]

If there is no sticker on it, and you cannot get into Windows, you are finished.

[srhoades]

There should be a Windows XP product key sticker on the bottom of your laptop.