CAPTAIN18

I have re-installed xp with your asssistance on ealier posts. I assumed all previous work would be lost ,but it is there under the different user names i had. the problem is i cant access the owner files and this is where all my main work is stored. i have tried to follow the help advise on screen it guides me to administration and systems but the window quickly closes before i can proceed. i would appreciate all the help you can offer. thanks guys

you are right, I have not lost my operating system it appears it be more serious. any ideas what it could be. when i start up it goes through xp pro start up to user accounts ok, the first you notice a difference is when i click my user and the windows intro sound is no longer played. It very quickly just shows my image screen without any desk top items or bars. it is all very quiet from the hard drive no sound at all. after a few minutes you can get the task bar to appear via ctrl alt del and browse folders. some will open the smaller programs but after a very short time the whole lot just freezes up. ive checked some folders like my pictures music and they are now empty?? and clues

thanks all for replying, BUT what would of removed the operating system then if it was not windows download. all i did was remove norton which was blocking the windows download and as soon as i did this i lost all my operating system. in windows program files it shows all items uninstalled. i assumed microsoft did it to all illegal copies. could i have a more serious issue here?

Hi Guys I need your help with a problem. I purchased a pc for my father last year which it turns out had an illegal copy of xp pro installed ( no disk) he has been using it for storing all his photos on . I visited him recently and looked at his pc i wanted to install a new version of norton anti virus so uninstalled the old version ( this was blocking auto updates from MS) when i did this the windows updated and deleted all the windows software without warning. we can only boot up the pc now but cant run anything and we dont want to lose all these family photos. we are quite happy to purchase the genuine software and would have done this if known in the first place. please can you offer any assistance as i dont know how to proceed without losing the photos. kind regards