| Jolly Rancher thank you, and yes indeed i am very impressed to get help from over there, and wish SGT T. all the best.
SGT T. i found the DELL Dimension 4500 owner's manual. There is a Reinstalling WIN XP chapter. Yes you are right, the first choice is a "clean install" which i would hate to use, since i have critical data on that computer and did stupidly not back up anything since a year!
i tried followed their instructions, basically same as yours, except that once the "set up xp" has run, and after selecting R for Repair option, they say "then go to step 16" which is: "Remove the CD from the drive" but....the drive doesn't let me take the CD out at this point.
So i am stuck at this level now.
May be this is relevant: the owner's manual reinstalling chapter description does not correspond entirely to what happens on my computer. On my computer it goes immediately to the Set Up WIn XP, while the manual says you have have select it first and to accept per F8 the agreements first.
what are your suggestions?  |