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No repair install with HP OEM XP?


JonF

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I have a friend's old HP with XP OEM Media Center SP3 x86 on it. It had some serious issues, perhaps due to a massive malware infection that wasn't cleaned. It would boot into safe mode and everything seemed to work that should work in safe mode. It would boot into normal mode, but...

Control Panel would not open at all. My Computer would open but never display anything in the main window, just the hourglass. IE and Firefox wouldn't open at all. Chrome ran, but only after a cascade of "Attempt to access protected area" dialog boxes. Cmd wouldn't start from Start | Run. System Restore wouldn't open. And there was other stuff I forget.

MalwareBytes found nothing with a deep scan. Nothing looked unusual in HijackThis!. Norton 360 found nothing. Sophos command line scanner found nothing. So I restored to the oldest restore point (about three weeks ago) using MS-DART 5. No change. I tried MS-DART's System File Scanner and it found and "repaired" a corrupted file. Now the system freezes at the WIndows XP graphic screen.

It's time for a repair install. Of course he has no CDs. I dug up a copy of HP OEM XP Media Center SP2. I slipstreamed SP3 with nLite. When I booted I got the repair console option, it there was no option for a repair install, just went straight to how to format the partition. I re-ran nLite with "Prompt repair" selected but that made no difference. How can I force this booger into a repair install?

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It's time for a repair install. Of course he has no CDs. I dug up a copy of HP OEM XP Media Center SP2. I slipstreamed SP3 with nLite. When I booted I got the repair console option, it there was no option for a repair install, just went straight to how to format the partition. I re-ran nLite with "Prompt repair" selected but that made no difference. How can I force this booger into a repair install?

Why don't you simply integrate the SP3 without nlite (this way you are sure thatn nothing has been changed by it)?

But wait a minute.

Compare with this:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Are you not tricked by "repair console option"?

Does it currently still boot in Safe mode?

jaclaz

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Ummm... don't slipstream SP3 into Media Center Edition... It will goof it up, including but not limited to Media Player as it does not understand that it's MCE and not Professional. SP3 can only (AFAIK) be applied on a running system by which it is recognized as MCE. The KEY determines that it's MCE (instead of Pro) at install time. Suggest you get a KeyFinder to ensure that a GOOD OEM Key is used for the Repair (jaclaz' link). Double-check it against a "potentially existing" WINNT.SIF file on the CD.

Go into Safe Mode in Add/Remove, select Show All Updates (whatever) and uninstall SP3. SP2 Repair Install will NOT install over a Running/Installed SP3. Then use the link jaclaz gave to attempt to "fix" it. Afterward, get your Updates. Look in the MCE section for some pertinent information.

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There was a repair console option, which I believe does me no good, and no repair install. As soon as I selected the disk it went straight to what system to use to format it. I thought that was clear.

It doesn't boot in safe mode. I wish I had noted what file DART's SFC "repaired". I guess the next step is a logged boot, maybe I that'll tell me what file to re-repair.

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There was a repair console option, which I believe does me no good, and no repair install. As soon as I selected the disk it went straight to what system to use to format it. I thought that was clear.

Yes/no.

You should also have the option ot install a second instance (without formatting anything) that is the "strange" part.

A "standard" XP does try to find an existing installation (and you can use the R option to repair it), but it also looks for already formatted drives and gives you the option to NOT format it (or if you prefere to install on an already formatted volume/partition).

If you have the space (ant the CD provides the option) you can temporarily install a second instance of XP, this could help in finding the "troubling" files by comparison.

I cannot say WHICH among:

  1. the source being "HP"
  2. the source being "MCE"
  3. the slipstreamed SP3
  4. the slipstreaming of SP3 through nlite

could be the cause of the behaviour you get :unsure:.

jaclaz

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I re-ran MS-DART System File Scan, and it pointed to a file being bad, which I seemed to remember as the one it found before. So I searched the disk for that file and replaced the file in System32 with the most recent version. Now the computer boots.

I found Service Pack 3 in Add/Remove Programs, but there was no uninstall button. I found spuninst.exe in the appropriate folder and ran it. It's been sitting there on step 1, "examining system configuration", for almost two days.

Looks like time to reformat the disk and do a fresh install.

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