Fixing a corrupt Windows installation
Posted on 22. Sep, 2008 by Mike Halsey in crisis
It’s quite common that Windows needs to be repaired or reinstalled because its become corrupt and is either misbehaving badly, reporting lost or corrupt system files, or giving you the horrible blue screen of death. There are a couple of things you can try here and for both you’ll need your Windows install CD or DVD. If you don’t have one, see if you can borrow one for the same version of Windows that you have (and preferably running the same service pack, but I’ll come to that later), the different versions could be XP Home, XP Pro or Vista (there’s only one install disc for all versions of vista).
Running the System File Checker
The first thing to do is run the system file checker. This will check all the files that make up Windows and if it finds any that are corrupt, it will replace them with the originals from the install disc. To use this…
- First boot into Windows.
- Insert your Windows disc into your CD/DVD drive but don’t install Windows if the installer appears.
- Get the command prompt.
- In Windows XP select run from the Start menu, type CMD and press Enter
- In Windows Vista type CMD into the search box in the start menu, when Command Promptright click appears in the search results, on it and select run as administrator, clicking through the UAC (user account control) security warning. If you don’t have a run as administrator option just run it as normal.
- In the new black windows that appears type the following SFC /SCANNOW and press Enter.
The PC will now check all of its configuration files. If this doesn’t fix the problem then reinstalling Windows over your current installation should do so without changing any of your options or removing installed software.
Installing a new copy of Windows without wiping your current one.
- Put your Windows install disc in your CD/DVD drive and wait for the installer to run.
- Work though the set-up process and tell the installer to perform an upgrade of windows over your current installation. Don’t forget you’ll need your product key (seen above) which will be on a sticker stuck somewhere to the side of your computer, or on a book that came with it.
It’s as simple as that. But What happens if one of these methods says it can’t work because you have a different version (service pack) of Windows installed?
Service packs are software downloads that Microsoft release every couple of years to fix bugs and add features. At the time of writing this XP is up to service pack 3 and Vista is on service pack 1.
If your install disk contains an earlier version of Windows, ie you have service pack 2 installed but your disc only contains the software up to service pack 1, then Windows might refuse to reinstall or repair itself. If this happens then you need to make yourself the right disc by slipstreaming the latest service pack into your Windows disc (this is very complicated though but if you’re determined a search on the internet can get you a solution), or you should find a friend or professional who can do it for you or who might already have a correct disc. Then the two options detailed above should work fine.
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