Non-Destructive OS Recovery

[somemoron]

I have Windows XP Home SP1. Recently, the probelm outlined at

http://forums.thatcomputerguy.us/lofiversion/index.php/t8083.html

happened to me.
After speaking with some other people, I have determined that a non-destructive recovery is the way to go to repair XP. I have the installation/repair CD that came with the computer and it boots fine, but I'm not certain where to go from there.
Is there a quick way to make it check for an repair any problems it finds, or will I have to do it manually through the command-line recovery console?

Either way, I'd very much appreciate a quick step-by-step of how to go about repairing my OS.

Thanks in advance,

somemoron

 

[bcastner]

It very much depends on the OEM manufacturer's choices. If it is a repair-by-complete replace method, quite common, the answer is no.

See if your information when booting from CD conforms reasonably close to these options:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

If not, you can lose everything with a repair. Contact the Tech Support or Sales division of the OEM manufacturer and purchase a full XP Home OEM CD version that is appropriate for your system.

 

[somemoron]

Yeah, I'm fairly certain that the article applies to me.

Just to explain the situation better: the problem happened after an unsuccesful install of SP2, and then an attempted removal of SP2 from the Add/Remove Programs menu (a dialog told me to uninstall it that way).

I'm a little confused by this, though (from the article): "To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R."

Is that all I have to do? Is it then repaired? If not, I'd like to know what commands to use in the recovery console to first: find the corrupted/missing files and second: repair/replace it from the installation CD.

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=875350px?scid=kb;EN-US;315341&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH