in desperate need of help (can you boot straight to DOS from windows XP?)

[mnkyspnk5w]

please help:

I installed Norton SystemWorks 2002 the other day and now I can't start Windows. It boots fine and then once you try and do anything in Windows, it freezes.

Anyway, I have two HDD's set up, one operational, the other storage.

On the operational HDD is still some very valuable information that I had yet to back-up/move to the storage.

So, I was thinking that if there's some way I can boot to MS-DOS and copy files from one drive to the other, then I'll happily format my operational HDD and start over.

Somehow, NOW Windows XP thinks that I'm in the middle of an installation of Windows XP and has limited my ability to get back to the regular desktop.

Here's what I've tried in the meantime:
-i tried this boot disk from microsoft. the problem is that it won't take you to the command prompt. It offers a "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" but that reverts back to the installation mentioned above because it doesn't think that the installation has been completed and thus you can't get to "Safe Mode" to access the command prompt.
-i tried a windows 98 boot disk. It doesn't allow me to access the files on my operational HDD.
-i tried a windows 98 boot disk sans everything except command.com , io.sys , and msdos.sys per a website that said that it would work as a boot disk

please please help

thanks

 

[minendo]

As you start up the computer keep pressing F8(not hold it down) and you should come to a menu that lets you into Safe Mode. You can then uninstall Norton that way. This is the way I did it in win2k and my best guess would be that winXP should be the same.

 

[mnkyspnk5w]

yeah, unfortunately the problem was that with anything that involves going in through windows (even safe mode) is that windows thinks that i'm currently in the middle of an install. i thought about letting it complete, but it's been trying to complete the install for the last two days. so the impression i'm getting is that somehow it's stuck in some install cycle (it goes from 39 minutes left to completed installation to 34 minutes, but never gets lower than that).

thanks though

 

[Bglad]

It sounds like the OS is hosed somewhere. Have you tried booting from the XP cd and choosing repair? If that doesn't work, try booting from the XP disk and install a new OS version over itself. Just be sure you don't format the drive and lose all your old files.

If those don't work you could try NTFS for dos which will allow you to access your NTFS partitions from dos to get your files off the drive before wiping it.

 

[mnkyspnk5w]

bglad~ THANKS A MILLION! i didn't realize it'd be just as easy as installing a new instance of winxp over it. so yeah, that worked. thanks again.