How to repair a Windows XP installation

I came across a problem where windows XP would not boot, but would blue screen giving me a stop error about a registry hive file being un-readable. I could boot into safe mode with networking by pressing F8 at boot, but even after using system restore the system would boot normally once and then the problem would reappear.

So I created a slipstreamed XP SP3 CD using Autostreamer and then followed these simple steps:

1. Place the CD in your CD Drive.
2. Reboot or Turn on your PC.
3. Press a key when prompted to boot from CD.
4. Press ENTER to setup windows. You DO NOT want to use the Recovery Console.
5. Accept the License and have setup search for existing installs.
6. Select the windows installation directory (normally C:\WINDOWS).
7. Hit 'R' to repair this installation. If this option does NOT appear Exit Setup immediately!
   

Now since I was using a SP3 slipstreamed CD, I got several file not found errors that I just skipped, but the install worked great!

Warnings:

• This will require you to type in your Windows CD Key, so make sure you have it ready before you begin.
• Always backup your data before proceeding!