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

I don't think that Windows Update deleted Windows. If the copy of Windows isn't 100 percent legit, it probably would just display the following message:

Cannot Validate The Product Key

The product key used to install Windows is invalid. (or similar)

could u not just take hardrive out slave it off on another pc then explore drive and move pics.

Edited September 15, 200619 yr by wizardofwindows

could u not just take hardrive out slave it off on another pc then explore drive and move pics.

Exactly.

You could (and should) buy a legal copy of Windows XP Professional and then repair the drive, keeping all of the data in place but simply changing the product key.

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?

Play it safe. As mentioned above, remove the hard drive and find a friend who will add it into his/her system as a slave drive and backup all the pictures and data files you need.

Buy a new copy of Windows Home or Pro and do a clean install. It sounds as if the guy who installed the original non-legal version probably did not know what he was doing and a clean install ALWAYS runs better.

Another option is to download Bart PE disk on a friends PC and build a Boot CD, if an external USB HD etc. is plugged in when the PC boots it will see it.

Good luck

If you're still able to boot Windows then the OS is still there.

There is NO WAY you can boot Windows if Windows has been deleted.

Windows system files are not installed in Program Files.

Edited September 16, 200619 yr by Takeshi

Even the illegal copies still run, just the message about "Windows is Not Genuine" appears.

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

Have you tried booting into safe mode and backing up the datato a different partition/external drive?

I'd agree with BigBrit-make a Barts PE CD. Use it to back up yer data-because if it were me I'd be nuking that install and starting fresh.

Good Luck

Gambate

Bonne Chance

Since we didn't sit in front of the computer when you uninstalled Norton we would never be sure what exactly happened. But at least we now agree that Windows had not been deleted afterall.

The most likely explanation is damage to the OS/data due to malware, file system/registry errors and/or HD errors. Further speculation into what happened would be pointless because there isn't sufficient clue and it's very unlikely you will be able to fix it.

Just salvage whatever you have left.

My money's on a bad hard drive