Help appreciated with XP repair

Johnny Storm

I had a big problem with my XP installation recently. I got the PC to boot from the XP CD but once it copied some files onto the PC it rebooted and then could only reboot again from the CD - ie it could not seem to find any of the 3 hard drives in the system. I did install the SATA drivers from floppy each time. After approx 1 million attempts I used the FIXBOOT command from the recovery console and that seemed to work.

I now have two problems:

1) Previously I had 4 users set up on the PC. All their files etc are still there in Documents and Settings. Is there any handy way to re-incorporate those users into the new installation?

2) Formerly I had XP installed on physical drive C: All the old user docs etc and files are still on C:. I think I now have XP installed on both C: and . When I go to My Docs in the new user that is active the path for My Docs starts with . Is that a problem? Should I attempt to delete XP from drive C:?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. PS I have made backups.

Capt'n Midnight

start - run - cmd
this will show you which folder windows in installed in
if different to the old one then you've lost user settings , but can copy back desktop and favorites to their new profiles

have C: / swapped could it be that he new version has installed on the other drive ??

Johnny Storm

Thanks Capt'n! The XP install that's working now is definately on a different physical drive than the old one.