XP Repair

Instead of pressing 'r', press enter to setup winXP. At the next screen press F8 to accept the license agreement. The next screen should detect an existing windows installation - press 'r' to repair windows. This will reinstall windows without affecting other software and data. You will neeed to reinstall service packs and hotfixes for windows and the repair will restore windows to its original unpatched state.

Start your computer in safe mode, it will promt you as it boots up. Select boot with CDROM support and select ok. Then go to control panel, add/remove programs. And remove XP SP2 and reboot. Then try to reinstall SP2.

SimY is correct. Here's a link to more detailed instructions.

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl/servicesupport/techsupport/software/windows/xp/Repair.htm

Dalton

More to the answers above. By pressing R, you are brought to the recovery console. This may seem similar to the command prompt, but it is really quite different.

I've used the console for driver issues, file management, virus removal, MBR repair, etc. There is not much to it if you understand your options, but this "repair" selection is not what you need to do to repair a Service Pack installation. The posts above are pretty accurate as far as I know, but I've never had to do it myself for any clients.

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