Windows won't boot no safe mode

Hello. I'm hoping someone can help me with this, 'cause I'm pretty much out of ideas....
This is actually in regards to my brother's computer. He called me up looking for a solution and just lost internet access today, so I'm posting this on his behalf.
Anyway, here's the problem.

His computer posts fine, but is unable to boot into windows. He's running Windows XP Home Edition (SP2 I believe). Whenever he tries, it hangs on a blank screen. He is also unable to boot into safe mode, using any option (last known good configuration, vga mode, etc.)

I had him try an ubuntu live cd, which worked fine, no trouble at all.

It turns out the problem started when he tried to install a modem driver. According to what he said, the installation appeared to get about half way through and either lock up, or the progress bar just vanished with no further messages. After that, his computer would no longer boot.

So I had him load his windows xp cd and do a repair installation, which also didn't help.

And it turns out that when he TRIES to boot into safe mode, and it goes through and lists what's being loaded, it was freezing on vpctcom.sys, which I believe is the driver for his modem.

So I had him load his windows xp cd, go into the recovery console, and try disabling vpctcom.sys.

Now when he tries to reboot in safe mode, it freezes on ndis.(??? forget whether it was .com or .sys or what). I'm not sure what that does, but I believe it's a core system file...Had him try to disable it in recovery console and reboot anyway (who knows?), but disabling it apparently didn't work as the file is still listed, and the computer still freezes at that point.

It appears very much that it's this modem driver that fouled things up. I don't even know if the driver installed completely. And at this point, I don't know what to tell him to do. He tried doing ANOTHER repair installation after disabling vpctcom.sys, just for the heck of it, which failed again.

I wondered if he could just install a second copy of windows on another partition and then copy the files he wants off the damaged install, but he just has one big partition on his drive. He could try loading ubuntu, resizing it with gparted (since he's only using about 120 of 200 gb) and then installing a new copy of xp on the new partition, but as he really, really doesn't want to lose any data and shrinking a partition can be a dangerous proposition, he doesn't want to risk it.

He currently has no internet connection, no recovery cds like ubcd, bart's pe, etc...Just an ubuntu live cd. No other hard drives, nothing.

So what can he do, bearing in mind that he has no internet connection, only the ubuntu cd, and his xp cd to work with, and only one hard drive/one computer?

I wrote this hastily, so I don't know if I left anything out or not. But thanks a lot to whoever gets this one figured out ;-).

This is really a mess. Why should a modem driver be involved with the Windows install? I did read most of your post, and get the idea that Windows needs to be re-installed simply, and then consider any and all drivers after the program is up and running. I'm pretty sure that I missed something here and if I did I apologize. Does the internet need to be on at the install 0f XP? I never have had that as a prerequisite. Anyway, Good Luck. No one else answered so I am trying to help.

Thanks for the response.

I may not have been as clear as I could have been.

Here is what I believe happened:

My brother was in the process of installing the driver for his modem when the installation of it crashed/was interrupted somehow. Therefore what he got when he installed his modem driver, rather than a functional modem driver, was a corrupted form of it. Or it installed successfully, and the driver itself was bunk somehow...I don't know if he got it off a disk, downloaded it from the net, etc.

When booting normally (or attempting to in safe mode), windows is hitting that file (vpctcom.sys) and going "What the hell?" and just kind of looping, perhaps?

That's the impression I'm getting of what's going on, anyway...windows doesn't know what to do when it hits that file, so it doesn't do anything.

I had him go into the recovery console (accessed through xp home cd) and disable the driver, thinking that might take care of the problem.

However, now when he tries booting in safe mode it's hanging on ndis, which through I don't understand quite what it does, stands for network driver interface specification. So going by the name alone and the little I read about it, perhaps it got screwed up by the bad driver install/the driver being disabled.

So I had him try to disable it the same way he disabled vpctcom.sys, but it didn't work...I think it's a core system file, and I assume that's why disabling it didn't work.

I guess when you boot into "normal" safe mode, though it's only supposed to load a minimal configuration, windows counts modem drivers as "minimal," so when he tries to boot into safe mode, it would try to load the driver, fail, and hang.

He certainly could fix the problem by reinstalling XP, that's true, but it's not an option in his case, as he needs to keep all his data. I *thought* you could install xp over an existing xp install without destroying personal data, but everything I've read says I'm wrong...Which is strange, because I believe I used to do that with '98...I don't know, either I'm remembering incorrectly or xp and '98 are simply different in that respect.

He doesn't need the internet in order to install XP. I just mentioned that he doesn't have internet access at the moment so that anyone reading the post would know what there is to work with. You know, if someone had the idea of downloading and installing this or that etc, it isn't an option for him. He has the xp cd and an ubuntu live cd to play with, and that's pretty much it.

If he had something like UBCD or Bart PE, he could attack the problem that way. I don't know what happens when you install a driver, in terms of what files are created/modified, where. So I don't know how you'd go about sort of manually rolling back/deleting a driver/undoing any changes the driver installation made. But if he had something like that, research could be done and questions could be asked and maybe the problem could be solved that way. But unfortunately, he had his internet shut off because he's about to move, and won't have it again for around a month.

I think I responded to everything you said/maybe clarified things a bit.