Mom FUBAR'd her PC: Need help with XP

[justcrash]

My days of general public support ended right before the release of XP. My mother, who I just allowed back into my life, has hosed her system. How? Suffice it to say that if she gets a pop up asking her to install killdrive.exe, she does. Anyway, It's an HP. It did not come with a recovery disk. However, it did come with the recpvery info on the D drive. The problem is thus: It will not boot past the "Choose user" screen, even in safe mode. Don't know how to reach the restore function either, so I was just going to restore it back to the way it was when she brought it home, set up her outlook and be done with it. So, how can i reach this restore drive?

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Can you get to it from a DOS boot disk? Otherise I'm not sure. Are you POSITIVE that it didn't come with a recovery disk? I've worked on many HP's (everyone at my work has HP's for some reason, except a couple people who have systems built by me), and they've all had restore disks. I know the feeling bro, but I'm lucky cause my parents live in FL!

 

[woodie1]

You could try a Windows 98SE Boot Disk with xcopy on it.

Boot to the A: prompt and then copy D: to C:

my $0.02

 

[justcrash]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
Can you get to it from a DOS boot disk? Otherise I'm not sure. Are you POSITIVE that it didn't come with a recovery disk? I've worked on many HP's (everyone at my work has HP's for some reason, except a couple people who have systems built by me), and they've all had restore disks. I know the feeling bro, but I'm lucky cause my parents live in FL!

Yeah man, I'm sure it didn't. I know because when we got it, that was the first thing I went looking for. Instead, its on a drive. You can order the recovery CD, for a fee. Of course, I tried to get my mom to order it, but she called HP support to order it, and ended up (don't ask me how) cussing out the poor support guy and hanging up on him (yup, she's that person).

I wish my mom lived in FL. I literally haven't spoke with my mom for 7 months, because I didnt want her negativity in my life. So finally, she had a July 3rd cook out and invited me, so I figured I would give her yet another chance. I spent all 3 hours working on her PC for her, and got it back to the point where she could access her bank website.

Today she called me, and surprise surprise, it won't boot. I absolutly HATE being someone's personal support person. I hate the fact that she does something ignorant I've told her not to do and jacks it up, so I get to drive 30 miles to go do something mundane. So in the 7 months I haven't spoke to her, she has REALLY jacked this whole thing up. IT'S A BRAND NEW PC!!!

So once I get this back up, and do the recovery thing, I am telling her I don't want her putting CRAP on it.. no weather bug, no Banzai buddy, no comet cursor, no ANYTHING. If she does, it's tough, because I'm done doing it.

*whew* Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Tell her you charge $50 an hour! :evil: Once you get it running, ghost the drive, so when she f*cks it up again, just talk her through unghosting it on the phone (just stick in the ghost floppy, go through a menu (Partition -> From Image i think) and wait 5 minutes! Good luck man!

-Josh

 

[PrincessGuard]

Press F10 at the HP BIOS spash screen. This will bring you to the recovery utility.

 

[Bleep]

Can you get to a command prompt? If so just change directories and it should load from the extra os that has been preloaded.

Bleep

 

[justcrash]

Originally posted by: PrincessGuard
Press F10 at the HP BIOS spash screen. This will bring you to the recovery utility.

F10 at the BIOS? Cool! Thanks!