Hi,

After I had to do a full system recovery, I reinstalled all my programs and
updates. Everything was fine except I had trouble getting rid of automatic
password window at Windows startup. It was using an old user name even though that name didn't show up in User Accounts. Alot of things were being stored there and my start menu items were there. Sometimes, they would go to my only User Account called Owner under the computer name Gail. So, some were in one place, and some, another. So, yesterday, while in Safe Mode I took over ownership of as many window files as I could do as I had to keep opening files within folders. It didn't work to try to take ownership of everything within a file or program. I was trying to get rid of Administrators.Gail from permissions. When doing so it removed all permissions and I added back Owner or added it for the first time. A few of them had System as one of the permissions that were removed and I did not add it back. Don't know if that is the problem.

Anyway, after I restarted computer from Safe Mode, it did not reboot. It
went through Windows screen then went blank with a curser. No matter what I try to do to get back into Windows, I keep getting the blank screen. I can't get back into safe mode except with a black screen with the safe mode heading at the top and safe mode in all 4 corners. But there are no icons, start button or taskbar. Ctrl Alt Del doesn't work to get into task manager. Is there anything I can do short of a full destructive recovery again? Is there a way to do a system restore? I can't get into safe mode with command prompt, either. Can I at least do a nondestructive recovery if I have to do recovery? I dont have an xp boot cd as my machine is OEM and windows was already installed when I bought the computer. I don't know anyone who has one to borrow. I did make recovery cds at the time.

I hope I am making sense. Can anyone help?

Thank you.

Gail

Gail

If you did a Full System Recovery, the drive would have been wiped and you would have basically reinstalled Windows. The old data, accounts, and programs would have been removed.

First question: Is there any data on the drive that you wish to keep?

Life's more painless for the brainless.

Thank you so much for replying. I just about finished installing all my programs, updates, etc. and hadn't backed them up yet, so yes, there is alot of stuff I want to keep IF I can.

Gail

Gail

It sounds like you have probably messed up your Windows configuration such that it cannot be fixed.

If your Presario model is recent enough you can order a set of Recovery CDs for your model from the HP web site using your exact model number found on the label on the outside of your computer case.
E.g. I did that for a friend and it cost about $50 for 6? CDs and was delivered to me in about 4 days. It took about 5 hours for the Recovery CD set to do it's thing, including automatically Activating Windows in the background near the end. You don't need to do much other than insert CDs when prompted.

If you can't get the Recovery CD set, you probably have no choice but to buy a regular Windows CD, install Windows, install downloads for your mboard available for your model on the HP site, etc., etc.
E.g. You can get OEM XP Home SP2 for less than $100 if you buy some inexpensive hardware at the same time, such as a mouse, or some ram, from places that have lots of computer parts and software, or from the web.

In either case you will need to load the many default Security and Critical Microsoft Updates after that.
And load any programs you have or want that didn't come with the system.
.....

Before you do that....
If you have anything on the hard drive you want to preserve such as email or personal documents or pictures, you have to copy them someplace, either CDs or DVDs, or to another hard drive.
If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, or another email program that stores email and it's attachments on your computer, there are files you need to copy to elsewhere.

You don't need to back up anything you can install from a CD, or from the web, again.