windows xp error

[vectis lady]

im not all that technical so i need a but of advice, i was shutting down my laptop after using the internet and it died on me, i first of all got the error message - please reinstall system 32, then before i could do anything the screen went black and i got " dll kernel error for load" any ideas whats gone wrong with it and is it fixable?

im running windows xp and i havnt installed any hardware recently only some software that came from a good company so shouldnt be dodgy

thanks to anyone who can help

[frostbite]

It might just be a shutdown glitch. Have you tried restarting it?

[cossack]

I've had a couple of system32 errors on my home PC recently and after much Googling the fix was to boot from the XP CD and select the repair option. You may need to change the boot order in the BIOS to get it to boot from CD before the HD.
This worked for me once but the most recent episode ended up with several missing dlls that for some reason could not be found, so I did an "over the top" reinstall of windows XP and only had to reinstall drivers and updates but retained everything else. Working OK for now <fingers crossed>
HTH

[vectis lady]

thanks, ive tried re-starting it with no luck so far.

if i do a full re-install of windows will i loose everything on the hard drive ? i would actually prefer to get the info off and kill the computer rather than save the pc but loose all my stuff, i know i should have backed up the files but i only just put them on there and didnt have time to

is there a way i can save the stuff?

[Saab Dastard]

One way is to boot off a Linux CD distro that can provide you with read access to the NTFS formatted partition(s) and also supports a USB external hard drive.

Copy and paste contents of laptop disk to external disk. Job done.

Alternatively, remove disk from laptop, insert into a) external USB caddy or b) 2.5 - 3.5" ide adapter in a desktop computer. Copy and paste as before.

The only fly in the ointment would be if you have encrypted any data on the disk with Windows. That will be stuffed unless you can access it with exactly the same account that encrypted it.

If your laptop disk is formatted with FAT32 you might even be able to get a DOS bootable floppy with USB support and do a DOS xcopy /s, but Linux would be far better and easier.

SD

[Parapunter]

im not all that technical so i need a but of advice,

[hellsbrink]

VL, if you ONLY reinstall windows without formatting the drive it SHOULD only overwrite the windows directory (find a way to move "documents and settings, just to make sure). You'll have to reinstall some things, but you should keep all your "important stuff".

But don't jump straight to that solution, try the "repair" option from an XP CD. That will only touch the actual OS side of things and leave everything else alone. You will have to do every windows update again, no doubt reinstall some drivers, etc, as Windows will be put "back" to the same state as it was when the disk was poduced (probably pre-SP2, etc) but the rest of your data will be safe.

And please remember to back things up.