Windows reinstall help

iMuse

Theres a problem with my brothers laptop, It wont boot up, it gets past the windows screen but then your greeted with a blue screen of death saying that the registry is corrupted and it reboots. Theres no real important data on the laptop so I thought the best option would be a reinstall of windows. I have a CD with windows XP so does anyone have a link to a decent guide on where I start with a new install? Thanks

ArtyM

Few questions..
Can you post the make/model of the laptop. It may have an inbuilt factory restore option that would make your life a whole lot earier as installing xp from disk would still require you to download drivers in order to get your graphics/sound/wireless/network etc to function properly.

You say you have an xp disk - is it the original one that came with the laptop? if not is it at least the same version of xp i.e. home/pro/media centre? Is it retail or oem?

I assume there is a licence key on the laptop, it is xp right?

iMuse

ArtyM wrote: »

Few questions..
Can you post the make/model of the laptop. It may have an inbuilt factory restore option that would make your life a whole lot earier as installing xp from disk would still require you to download drivers in order to get your graphics/sound/wireless/network etc to function properly.

You say you have an xp disk - is it the original one that came with the laptop? if not is it at least the same version of xp i.e. home/pro/media centre? Is it retail or oem?

I assume there is a licence key on the laptop, it is xp right?

Hi

The Laptop is a HP Pavillion dv6000, it already has XP installed and its a about 5 years old.

The disc with XP on it didnt come with the laptop, I got it from a friend but I think he downloaded from somewhere and burnt to a disc. Im not sure exactly what version of XP is on the disc. Looking at the laptop there doesnt seem to be a license key on it, just laptop serials etc,Would it be hidden anywhere?

ArtyM

Restart the laptop and press f11 key as it begins to start. This should bring you to the HP factory restore program where it will give you the option to restore the entire system. It will wipe everything so be absolutely sure you do not need the data that is currently on it as you will never retrieve it afterwards.
Try this and post back
Good luck

You are looking at a very frustrating time if you try doing the install manually with a random xp disk and no serial number.

iMuse

Cheers for your help, Managed to access the recovery partition through F11 and its working again perfect

ArtyM

Glad to hear it.
Just some followup advice for you.

1. Put on a good Internet security package asap - the one that got installed with the factory restore is now seriously out of date, remove it and install something else(not McAfee).
2. Do windows updates until complete. You are probably back to xp service pack 1 which is very vulnerable. Keep doing updates until you are up to service pack 3. Will take a while and many reboots.
3. Finally, look for the option to create restore DVDs(dont use CDs-it will require 10 or 12 of them). It should be in the start>programs> in a folder with HP in the name. This will help you create the disks in case this ever happens again - dont rely on the f11 trick working every time. Keep the disks safe, and labelled.

Good luck