Rogue printer uninstallation corrupted my Win2K installation

[TakedownCA]

I had just gotten my new HP 952c printer today so I downloaded and installed the newest drivers. After doing that I deleted the drivers I had for a Lexmark Z22 (my old printer) and a Lexmark Z12 (my sister's printer). I then remembered that the Lexmark drivers made some changes, so I ran the uninstall shortcut in the Lexmark Z12 driver's start menu folder. All of a sudden all hell broke loose. A command window popped up and I quickly saw MANY files in the C:\WINNT folder deleted. I closed the window as soon as I realized that all those files had nothing to do with the printer, but it was too late. My windows installation was already corrupted. I didn't make any emergency repair disks. And I don't know exactly what files and directories other than C:\WINNT were effected. Assuming the files weren't deleted, if I reinstalled Win2K would I still be able to access my personal nonsystem files and back them up to a separate partition on the drive? I know I could hook the drive to another computer and do it that way, but my access to other computers is limited. Another question is how the hell did this happen in the first place? I know I sound like a total newbie, but I've been around computers for over 5 years now and have built several, so I know what should and shouldn't wreck my system. I'm totally at a loss as to why some printer uninstall program would go haywire like this. Anyway, I'm sure if you've read this far you're tired of my whining. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[MacaroneePenguin]

Doesn't NT have a repair option when you boot up into the setup? I don't think that doing a repair will delete all of your personal files because it's supposed to only replace WINNT files that are lost/needed.
You might wanna double check on that though.

 

[TakedownCA]

Yes, Win2K has a repair option if I boot from the install cd, but when I choose that option I get 2 sub-options. I can either use the emergency repair disks (which I don't have) or I can use something called the repair console or something like that. The repair console is just a text interface that lets you navigate as if you were in DOS. But other than that it doesn't do anything. I have access to the WINNT folder, but I wouldn't know where to start repairing.

 

[TakedownCA]

^

 

[JayBone]

Dunno if it'll work from the recovery console, but you can try...

run System File Checker - it should be located in c:\winnt\system32 and maybe c:\winnt\system32\dllcache. If it's not, it's somewhere on your Win2k CD.

sfc.exe /scannow

If that works, be sure to re-apply any service packs, stuff from windows update, etc.