HarryJr Posted May 9, 2011 Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 Hello all, first time post.To make a long story short, I accidentally uninstalled the driver for my hard drive in Windows XP, and now (surprise) Windows will not boot. I am hoping there is a way to reinstall the driver from outside of Windows, or at least a way to install some kind of driver that will allow Windows to boot and correct the problem.Can anyone help? Let me know if more information is needed. Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted May 9, 2011 Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 maybe this page will help/>http://www.computerhope.com/drivers/hard.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryJr Posted May 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 maybe this page will help/>http://www.computerhope.com/drivers/hard.htmThanks for the quick reply. Hopefully the driver for the hard drive I have is in executable format. I will attempt this once I get home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted May 9, 2011 Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 I am mystified by this problem.Hard drive drivers are nothing to do with Windows but are a function of the BIOS (CMOS) of your computer. Am I correct in thinking that there have been some "adjustments" made to the BIOS which didn't go quite according to plan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted May 9, 2011 Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 pops, I did not understand either - I thought the problem might be missing ntldr, but when I googled for hard drive 'drivers', the computerhope page came up, so I passed it on. will be interested to learn more :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryJr Posted May 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2011 Ok, here are more details.I was busy playing with my Android phone, mainly trying to get Windows to recognize it. As a result, I was installing and uninstalling drivers a bunch. Then, I saw something in my Android book that looked just like the hard drive driver (unknown to me at the time), so I uninstalled that too. Then it asked me to restart, which I did, realizing too late what I thought I had done, and now it barely gets to the Windows loading screen before it bluescreens.So my initial assumption is that I uninstalled the Windows driver for the hard drive, so that even though the BIOS knows what to do with the hard drive, Windows has no idea.Am I completely off? I'm hoping this is a simple matter of somehow reinstalling the driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted May 10, 2011 Report Share Posted May 10, 2011 First thing to try: boot into Last Known Good Configuration.If that does not fix it, try booting into Safe Mode and do a System Restore (to a date before you created the problem) in there.That should do it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryJr Posted May 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2011 Wait, I might be wrong. I might be remembering incorrectly.I went into the Device Manager and "removed" the hard drive there. So it may be that uninstalled the "device" rather than the "driver". I don't have any other WinXP machines, so I can't be sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryJr Posted May 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2011 First thing to try: boot into Last Known Good Configuration.If that does not fix it, try booting into Safe Mode and do a System Restore (to a date before you created the problem) in there.That should do it.I totally missed the "Last Known Good Configuration" option. I tried that and it booted right up. +1!What I did was I went into the device manager and "accidentally" clicked "Uninstall" for my hard drive, then when it rebooted, it failed, and then "Last Known Good Configuration" rolled back the problem. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted May 10, 2011 Report Share Posted May 10, 2011 Can you not reinstall Windows?:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted May 11, 2011 Report Share Posted May 11, 2011 Can you not reinstall Windows?:)That's a bit drastic, to repair one little accident. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted May 11, 2011 Report Share Posted May 11, 2011 Can you not reinstall Windows?:)That's a bit drastic, to repair one little accident.Probably true, but before I started using ACRONIS and keeping mirror images to install, I more often than not found that messing about with repairs resulted in more problems. A clean reinstall if in doubt never failed, and was easier in the long run.B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted May 13, 2011 Report Share Posted May 13, 2011 Reinstalling Windows (clean or repair install) was a routine job in the Windows 9x days. However, I have never (ever) found it necessary to reinstall an NT-based Windows system (NT4, 2K, XP, or newer).But of course you are right: the best thing is to always have a good backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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