xp home recovery problem

[Skillagalee]

I have a hewlet packard pc with xp home installed by manufacturer. no CD's came with the pc. Started having problems with pc, mouse not working and key board not responding. have had to recover system a couple of times.
the last time I tried to recover the process stopped when windows was rebooting. now all i get is a window stating it needs a file from the xp Cd
sisagp.sys the key board or mouse will not work. is there any way to get to the data on the hd to copy it.

 

[Special-K]

Did you buy the PC brand new from a retail outlet or second hand?
SURELY if it was brand new there should be a CD with the machine?
I bought an HP Pavilion a few years back and there was a CD supplied, albeit an HP all-software-on-one CD type of thing.
What happens if, as seems to be the case, the HD gets corrupt? You cant reinstall the system as you dont have any software!

 

[Skillagalee]

I bought the pc from a retailer. I have been told that not all came with a CD.
some of the earlier pc did not ship with a CD.
apparently you have to create your own but you can't do that once there is a problem. I got this from a couple of other boards.
most important thing is to get the data off the pc, then figure out how to reload windows. any ideas

 

[Special-K]

Only thing I can think of is use the system disk as a slave drive in another system to get at the dodgy drive.

What about creating a BartPE recovery CD? Am sure there are some messages on this forum regarding BartPE CD. Though again you'd need a second system with CD writer to create it

 

[olefarte]

The last HP, and I think a Compaq before that, didn't have a disc with it. The backup was on a seperate partiion. You can order one from HP, but I know that's not a fast solution. It's kind of sad that they don't supply a cd.

Now I could be wrong, but I think you can use another disc, iinstall it, and use your key and it will work. BUT, I'm not really sure on this, but it seems like I've read that here somewhere, never had to try it myself. Maybe someone else here will jump in an confirm it, or not.

 

[Skillagalee]

no key

I do not have a key. since there were no CD with the system I don't have a key. can I use a new copy of xp to get they system up and then copy the data out to cd and then completely reinstall xp from new cd?

 

[gwhite]

Try hitting the F10 or F12 key when you boot. Several times if necessary. Some HP machines will enter a system restore routine when you do. They keep a copy of your original system setup on a separate partition.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Put the HD as slave in another PC, as suggested above. Using Partition Magic and the likes, you should be able to UNhide the storage-partition and get your install-files from there. Failing that, there are utilities out there to retrieve the XP-installation key, like ViewKeyXP from http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ViewKeyXP.htm

Save the user-data you need from your old HD onto CD or onto another HD.
Then borrow/copy anybody's XP-disk to re-install.
Make sure to get the same type, i.e. based on the key it will tell you Retail or OEM.
If XP-Home, an XP-Pro disk won't work, and vice-versa.