Guess whose computer crashed?
 

Yeah, mine. Windows told me that it couldn't load explorer.exe and that I needed to reinstall. My dad forced me to take it to some guy who told me he would have to wipe my hard drive. Bleh.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

didnt need to whip out the drive.

And which explorer was it trying to run? windows explorer or internet explorer? (both basically run of the same thing, but ones much more easy to fix then the other. lol)

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

Windows. I think it had something to do with the badurl.grandstreetinteractive virus had a week ago. It kept putting stupid stuff on my computer. I just hope the guy doesn't wipe my drive like I know he will.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

Make a backup, run start up, and see if you can load windows to an older state that isn't ****ed up.

I deleted my system.dat file or something......

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

if you have the windows CD you can re-install windows without having to delete anything...just put in the CD, boot up your comp, go into BIOS Setup (press 'del' when comp is booting) set the first boot device to CD-Rom and restart...it should ask you to press the any key, when it asks if you want to repair wondows the first time, don't, just press enter to continue withthe installation, when it asks the second time, repair it and it will re-install windows without formatting.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

going into the bios is a different key for different computers. some you delete, some use one of the fkeys.

and you dont have to go into the bios at all if your computer is already set to the correct boot order, so just try without going into the bios first. some pc's say press any key to boot from CD.
if you do have to go into the bios, the correct order is
FLOPPY
CD ROM
HD

dont just change the first cuz sometimes that screws up things. make sure you have the HD in the list somewhere still.

And it should just be repair, i dont think it says reinstall with it. cuz repair and reinstall are different.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

Easy thing for me to do in these situations if the repair fails is to just boot into Safe Mode (I think you have to keep pressing F8 before the XP loading screen comes up) and choose it. Then just restore computer to an earlier point.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

If you reinstall XP, you can keep your old user's files under Documents and Settings. Just make one user with a different name when setting XP up. Plus, it runs faster. The only downside of a reinstall is that none of your programs will work. But they'll all be there. It's definitely perfect for backing up files.

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

there are 2 repair options in the process of installing windows (i know because i have used it many many times), the first option is a manual repair where it puts you into an MS-DOS type thing and you type whatever you want it to do, where as the second one is an automatic re-install of windows (by automatic i mean user-friendly, you can use a mouse)

Re: Guess whose computer crashed?
 

mine says automatic repair.

auto reinstall would be wrong. no wonder they changed it. lol. j/k :p

but mine really does say manual and auto repair. ah well.