SPAMBOT4000 Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 Yo! Now I don't exactly have all the info or knowledge here but... my Dad has a fairly old PC. I mean, to be fair he's needed a new one for a good long while now as it's very slow. It came with XP preinstalled on a hidden partition on the hard drive but with no install CD. Now, when his comp usually fucks up he just does some kind of restore that grabs all this XP goodness and resets it again... or something. He did this today but was having trouble with the drivers for some PCI USB controller. I found the correct ones for him but they were saying that they needed service pack 1 to be installed before they could be loaded. So, he has a CD from some mag that has service pack 2 on. We set this to install and it does and asks to restart. We do and.... It won't boot back up. Not in safe mode, not in last good configuration, not in anything. Starts loading windows and then the BSOD flashes by and it reboots. Anything we can do or try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten10 Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 What make of PC is it. Often they let you load the hidden partition by pressing a key combination at boot time. Often the key is something like f11. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 (edited) You could try repairing windows by booting from the disk. The repair installation doesn't overwrite any of your personal files. Or you could boot into an OS from a disk, such as Ubuntu, back up all your files to DVDs or second hard drive, then reinstall Windows afresh. Btw there's no need to install service packs from a disk as they can be downloaded through Windows update, and that way you know you're getting the right thing. Edited November 16, 2009 by Shorty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPAMBOT4000 Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 Thanks peeps, Ten10, tis an HP Pavillion. Tried F11 but it didn't do anything. Yeah we've thought about the boot disk but he didn't make one so we need to try and get one off somebody. Not a bad idea about booting into Ubuntu though, thanks. Yeah I realise that about the service packs but our internet connection is dreadfully slow aaand his wireless dongle thing was connected to the USB controller that wasn't working so we just thought it'd be easier... Ooops! Def won't be doing that again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten10 Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 According to an online manual, the key you need to button mash at boot is f11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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