[davidsian]

After a problem running Partition magic, which crashed part way through, a lot of my windows components no longer seem to work. This includes the Windows installer and Windows firewall as well as my Mcaffe security software. I think it was the latter that told me I needed to reload Java - but couldn't do that as windows installer is not working.

So I decided to repair windows by loading over the top. I had a problem at the end which seemed to be resolved by / CHKDSK R . However now it loads through to my login and then when I enter my password it says soemthing like - This copy of windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can log on. Do you want to activate Windows now?
If I say no it closes the system down. If I say yes it just hangs on the teletubbies screen, without loading any apps.

Any ideas?

[Old Rich]

What was the problem at the end of the Repair? . . Did the Repair install work?

What partitions are you seeing now on the drive?

[davidsian]

It got stuck on a "Please wait" screen and went nowhere.

When partition magic worked successfully it was showing the two partitions on the drive correctly.

[lasertech]

Hi,

Does to boot to safemode (with networking)

Sounds like a Windows licence error - dealt with many

If it boots to safemode you have a chance of saving it by re activation using the command line

[Old Rich]

Originally Posted by davidsian

It got stuck on a "Please wait" screen and went nowhere.

When partition magic worked successfully it was showing the two partitions on the drive correctly.

The partition is likely corrupted . . do you have an installtion disc so that you can reinstall?

[davidsian]

Re message 1
When I boot in safe mode I get the same "This copy of windows must be activated .." message. "Because activation cannot occur in safe mode, please restart your computer in normal mode to activate windows"

re message 2
The computer didn't come with an installation disc, but I followed instructions at the time to save the operating system, which is streamed with SP2.
I used this disc to slip stream with SP3 and reinstalled this over the top. Should I have done a repair install intead? Is it too late to do so?

[Old Rich]

Installing over the top is the same thing as a Repair Install. Your best chance of recovering is probably a clean install. Be sure to back up your files first.

[davidsian]

But I can't actually access my files at the moment to back up. Thankfully I did do a backup before using partition magic, though it's an incremental of a differential so could take a while It's nearly midnight here, so I'm going to bed soon, but might have one more go at loading over the top again tomorrow. I've already ordered a replacement hard drive, cause this one was just getting too small, and was planning to do a clean install on that, but it would be easier to have the current drive up and running to make sure I haven't missed anything.

[lasertech]

Boot to safe mode

Begin by opening the Registry Editor and navigating to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents

In the right pane, right-click the ODBETimer binary value and select Modify. Change at least one character of this value to either a number from 0 to 9 or to a letter from A to F, then click OK and close the Registry Editor. This renders the current product key invalid and deactivates Windows.

Boot windows normally - login should take awhile then show the activation screen

[Byteman]

Be sure you have your Windows Product Key - it should be on the Media Center label attached to your computer case somewhere......

[Old Rich]

Once you get the new drive installed and an operating system installed, you should be able to slave the old one and copy files

[davidsian]

Originally Posted by lasertech

Boot to safe mode

Begin by opening the Registry Editor and navigating to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents

In the right pane, right-click the ODBETimer binary value and select Modify. Change at least one character of this value to either a number from 0 to 9 or to a letter from A to F, then click OK and close the Registry Editor. This renders the current product key invalid and deactivates Windows.

Boot windows normally - login should take awhile then show the activation screen

I've found that I can access safe mode by going in without networking and logging on as administrator rather than under my name. So I can now get to reg editor. But I just wanted to check what the above is doing? Will this get over the windows activation problem? Won't it still need me to activate again before letting me through?

And byteman - yes I have my product key, and needed to use it when I reinstalled over the top.

Thanks for everyones advice so far.

[TheOutcaste]

If you had IE7 or IE8 installed the repair install would have replaced some of the IE files with the IE6 versions, which will cause this problem.
See if you can uninstall IE8, then IE7 from Add/Remove programs.
If not listed, got to C:\Windows\IE8\spuninst and double click on spuninst.exe
You'll get a list of programs that were installed after IE7/IE8 and a warning that they might not work properly. I've not had a problem uninstalling anyways, then re-installing after activating.
Reboot back to safe mode and repeat for C:\Windows\IE7\spuninst
Then boot to normal mode again and see if you can activate.

[davidsian]

Sorry, other things have come up today and I've only just got round to following the above. IE7 and 8 weren't showing in Add/Remove programs. I located the spuninsts (they were hidden files). Going into the one for IE8 there's
spuninst Setup Information
spuninst Windows Service Pack Uninstall
spuninst text document
spuninst.exe.manifest (I double clicked on this but nothing happened)

Am I correct in assuming I should click on the uninstall option to remove IE8 and then repeat for IE7?

Going to bed again soon, so probably follow up in the morning.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by simpswr

Installing over the top is the same thing as a Repair Install. Your best chance of recovering is probably a clean install. Be sure to back up your files first.

Rich that really isn't true and I'm sure by over installing this system is beyond fixing and you are right a clean install is all that is left.