WinXP Home.. please help me understand

[Chase585]

Good Morning Everyone!

Well. Once again, I shut down my computer last night and booted it up normally this morning. As it loads and wonderful black screen pops up that says "Windows could not start because C:/Windows/Config/ is missing or corrupted. Than it went on to say you can repair it by using the CD and pressing "R".
So, I popped the CD in and went through the whole waiting process than choose R to repair the installation on my computer. It asked for an Admin password. I have been told that if you never set the admin password it would be "Blank".... I typed that in three times and it kept telling me that's not the password.

So I had to reinstall again!
Now here's my problem..... it doesn't take my serial number. I've been through this before but I need help in understand "Why". It's a valid serial, I had to call Microsoft who asks me questions such as my computer brand, model number, than ask for the serial and "Bam" they give me yet another activation code. But I feel SOOOO Stupid calling them AGAIN because I just reinstalled and called less than 3 weeks ago. =0(

So here's a few questions:

What is the password for repair of Windows XP home?
How can I "FIND" the password if I need to or reset it?
Why is my serial being rejected when I call and they accept it?
"WHY" is my computer constatnly crashing when I do everything I can to keep it clean and mantained?
Is it possiable that files are corrupt on my installation CD and that's why I'm having these problems?

Thanks in advance friends!

 

[ItsPeet]

I have had the "Windows could not start because C:/Windows/Config/ is missing or corrupted" error when I overclocked my PC last night. Didn't turn up again after normal CPU/Memory settings. Have you overclocked yours, or just added more RAM?
And by the way:
- the Admin password isn't liturly "Blank" but you've just got to hit the Enter-key...
- it can be that your CD-drive is faulty, I have had weird errors installing XP just because it didn't read the CD well
- there is no real easy way to recover login passwords, I've seen a topic on that in this forum, where they create a boot-CD and use Linux tools

 

[Chase585]

What do you mean overclocked?
No I haven't done anything software or hardware wise.... I just "Use" it...
it's been doing this for about 4 months. I've had to reinstall at least 10 times. It's terriable. =0( I'm not sure what I should do with god forsaken thing anymore. Maybe take a hammer to it? LoL. Oye. Thanks for replying. It's quite possiable my CD-Rom is faulty.. I have a regular CD reader which is drive D:/, I have CD-RW which is drive E:/ and an external DVD reader/burner that's drive F:/...... should I try placing the CD in Drive E of F next time? They both read CD's.

 

[ItsPeet]

Overclocking = setting system speed and frequencies above factory specs.
Yes you could try other CD-drives installing XP. Have you tried a complete clean install, including formatting the harddrive?

 

[lotuseclat79]

Chase585,

As you are booting up from a complete power off state try pressing F8 key at top of keyboard after the Power On Self Test (POST) process completes but before WinXP displays graphical output - (keep pressing it multiple times) - to
get into the Windows Advanced Options menu that will allow you to select one of several options which includes Safe Mode.

Select Last Known Good Configuration and let the system reboot.

-- Tom

 

[12tipp12]

hi, had similar problems and it turned out to be a dodgy disc, i reinstalled with a new cd and everything worked fine.

Bill