Windows XP Repair Messed Everything Up

[Blue Banana]

The title doesn't really paint the full picture, so this is what's going on:

The system hangs on the welcome screen for about an hour before actually showing the desktop, the icons also take a really long time to appear.

1. Tried to do a windows repair (not recovery console, the automated process).
2. After the setup copied the files and rebooted the system, the pc was stuck in a reboot loop.
3. Tried the repair two more times, but to no avail.
4. Tried to remove temporary files using HBCD. Tried repair again. Nothing.
5. Safe Mode says it cannot continue setup in safe mode, only thing I can do is exit it.

Don't know what else I can do as I really don't want to format, there are tons of data and configurations on the system. Is there some way I can save the situation?

 

[Martyn]

First thing I would do is back up the data and do a hard drive and hardware check including memory. Live disk run ok?

 

[Blue Banana]

First thing I would do is back up the data and do a hard drive and hardware check including memory. Live disk run ok?

Ran perfectly. Backed up data, doing Memtest now.

 

[Kitten Kong]

+1 for the hard drive check. This screams hard drive failing to me.

I'm surprised that you didn't check the drive as soon as it showed the long booting symptom.

 

[Blue Banana]

+1 for the hard drive check. This screams hard drive failing to me.

I'm surprised that you didn't check the drive as soon as it showed the long booting symptom.

Wait, I think I did do a check. I quickly checked out the system on Friday but couldn't pick it up until today. Yes, I ran a chkdsk, but I'll run some other tests now.

 

[tek9]

Wait, I think I did do a check. I quickly checked out the system on Friday but couldn't pick it up until today. Yes, I ran a chkdsk, but I'll run some other tests now.

Don't run chkdsk (which checks the file system) until you've checked the hard drive's physical health with something like gsmartcontrol, seatools, and the like.

 

[Blue Banana]

Western Digital Data LifeGuard also shows failed. Running a complete error scan, but I don't think it's worth it anymore.

 

[GCS]

I'd mirror the drive before you start running deep scans like that.
If it is recoverable you might push the drive over the edge with a chkdsk, etc.

 

[freedomit]

I'd mirror the drive before you start running deep scans like that.

If it is recoverable you might push the drive over the edge with a chkdsk, etc.

2nd that.

Slow clunky boot screams HDD failing especially on old XP computer, first thing I would have done is boot UBCD and ran HDD diagnostics