Windows System Recovery XP Help

[Lady Arianrod]

Hello, all! I hope this is the right forum. If not, feel free to move it to the right section.

Anyway, I'm freaking out about my desktop PC at the moment. My laptop is doing just fine, but I need the other one for the printer and the family needs it as well.

Someone sent us a corrupted Windows media player file and our HP computer informed us that we were missing an important file. Windows XP couldn't start. I pressed F10 a few times and entered the system recovery menu. It took me through the whole "Introduction to Windows" thing and then, just as I pressed "finish", the computer froze. The tower sounded like a 747 jet, but the monitor didn't show any progress.

I tried to turn off the entire computer (and the power strip) several times, but every time I tried to reload it, the "please wait" message would appear under the Windows XP logo. It kept leading me to the last "finish" screen, but it would always freeze. Also, when I inserted a disk, it said that they couldn't find the EULA and that setup couldn't cotinue.

Please help or pray! I'm very lost at the moment and I have several big projects due...

[TheMelodyMaker]

Did your computer come with a recovery CD/DVD? If so, this may be a good time to use it -- and use the option that actually formats the hard drive before restoring it. That's the only thing I can think of that might help you... ^_^;

[Lady Arianrod]

Thanks! I actually managed to somehow recover most of our old files, but it took a long time to reload windows.

Thanks for your advice- I used the F10 recovery button on my HP computer and it works now!

[TheMelodyMaker]

That's good; I'm glad you got it working again. I was hoping you wouldn't have to reformat, because that might have meant losing any work files that you didn't have a chance to back up first. ^_^;;