Sunday, February 28, 2010

Alternative use of Linux Live CD: to fix Windows installation

Somehow, either because of my installation of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, or because I accidently removed a driver, my XP installation on my desktop computer was refusing to start up.  Just prior to loading Windows, it complained about something like "a corrupt or missing file C:\WINDOWS\INF\BIOSINFO.INF ...".  According to Google results, this can be repaired by booting from the XP installation CD and running the Recovery Console.  Unfortunately I could not provide the administrator password the Recovery Console was looking for.

However, although I don't actually have my desktop dual-booting, I could use my Ubuntu 9.10 install disc to run Ubuntu from the CD.  Ubuntu is able to access my XP partitions, and thus I could copy the BIOSINFO.INF file from the XP install CD to the C:\WINDOWS\INF\ folder!

No comments: