This will likely be a very long post, so please bear with me.
If you don't want to read all of it, just skip to my question at the end (marked in bold).

I've been working on my primary computer since 6am yesterday until now (3:45am) - roughly 22 hours - trying to get it back up and RUNNING. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but here's how it went:

Late yesterday evening, around 10pm, I noticed there were several new updates available for Windows XP (via automatic updates). Some security fixes, some things for the .NET Framework, and a couple others I don't recall. I ran the update and everything installed fine. I then had to reboot to complete the process. This is when the nightmare BEGAN. When I got back into Windows, my internet connection was dead. Not just dead, but several vital operating systems were simply *gone*. I ran services.msc and discovered that "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)" was now corrupt and couldn't be started. Along with that, "Application Layer Gateway Service" was also corrupt.

I couldn't create a new network connection (I use a router between 2 computers), couldn't delete the old connection, and if I tried to edit or fix the existing connection, it would simply freeze up and I'd have to reboot. At that point, after about 6 hours straight of trying to fix things--I had to face the unpleasant truth: Time to do a Windows XP repair via the CD-Rom. Not such a bad thing in itself, I've used it in the past with no problems. However, part 2 of the nightmare began here.

The repair process was going along smoothly up until it started looking for drivers for my soundcard. No big deal... I'd just click browse on the dialog box, find the driver on the CD and that'd be that. Except, what's this? My mouse and keyboard no longer function. Both my keyboard and mouse (generic Dell keyboard, Logitech G5 Laser Mouse) are USB devices. So during the repair process, at some point it removed both of them. All I'd need to do is use the mouse, click browse, find the driver on the CD, and I'd be on my merry way. But without the mouse OR keyboard, I was completely screwed. I had no way of interacting with the computer, so there was no way to tell XP where the driver was located.

I cringed, knowing this mess was about to get worse... and rebooted.

Upon rebooting, I was given the choice to either boot from the CD or simply continue. Since I had no keyboard or mouse support anymore, it continued on its own. Everything seemed okay, Windows was booting up. A sigh of relief... and then I get the message "Setup is now restarting" - it was going to start the repair all over again. So, it'd start going through that, get to the same point with the missing soundcard driver, and I'd have no possible way to interact via mouse/keyboard. This leads you into an infinite loop. Run the repair, lose keyboard and mouse support, get to the missing driver, then be forced to reboot. You reboot, it automatically starts the repair again, you lose mouse and keyboard support again, get to the same missing driver, and are forced to reboot... ad infinitum.

This was not going well.

I began doing many hours of research online (via the secondary computer from which I'm typing this message now) as to how to get around this loop. Eventually, I found a program called BartPE. It allows you to create a bootable XP CD-Rom by using your existing WinXP installation. Using this and its graphical USER interface, I was able to bypass the loop and access XP in a DOS-like environment. So I still wasn't back in Windows, but I could at least access my files and begin experimenting with other possible fixes. Unfortunately, after several more hours, this provided no solution either. I could access my files but had no way of doing anything with them. (I forgot to mention: when bypassing WinXP's repair loop and using BartPE instead, I was able to use my keyboard and mouse again) -- anyhow, one thing I had found online was that the loop was being caused by a damaged boot.ini file. So I tried several different things and, once again, to my dismay, nothing worked.

I was still stuck in the loop, unable to use my mouse or keyboard... and it was such a small problem. Just one driver on one CD. That's all I needed to fix and I'd be able to finish the XP repair. This is when it finally dawned on me that both devices were USB and without their drivers, XP was going to keep doing this over and over no matter what. So I went digging through some old hardware I had laying around in the garage and (finally, some luck!) found an old PS/2 mouse.

I plugged it in, ran the Windows XP repair one more time, got to the missing driver... and finally was able to browse to the soundcard's driver on its CD-Rom -- thus allowing the repair to run its course and complete. I'm now able to get back into the Windows desktop on that computer... but there's still a problem. On top of everything else, now the Layered Service Provider is corrupt. I have absolutely zero access to anything related to the internet. I can't even connect to my router's configuration page via its IP in Firefox or IE. I can't even *open* my e-mail software, let alone access it far enough to get an error saying there's no internet connection available.

Again, back to this computer to do more research. I found LSP-Fix, which I'm sure some of you are already aware of, that is designed to repair this exact problem. Alas, it did not work for me. Somehow, something vital along the way has gotten utterly annihilated in Windows. I now have to face another unpleasant reality: backing up all my files and doing a fresh install of Windows XP.

So... this brings me to my question:

I have Windows XP partitioned into two drives. C:\ is where Windows is installed. E:\ is my "extra space" or whatever you want to call it. I have video games installed there and some miscellaneous files. What I need to know before I do a clean install is this: Do I need to backup anything on the E:\ drive as well or will it remain untouched? Rather than use up 25 CD-Rs, I'd like to use as few as I can and just move some things to the E:\ drive.

Will I lose everything in there or is it safe, even when doing a clean install? My CONCERN is that a clean install will want to partition the drive again and I'll lose anything that was on the E:\ drive.you could just get a PS/2 keyboard... it's good to have one, at least as a back-up when stuff like that happens.Yes, I believe I will after all this.

But I want to know if doing a clean install will erase everything on the E:\ drive or if I can store things there as backup, along with CD-Rs.

Do you know if doing a clean install will wipe out both C:\ and E:\?It will not wipe out your E partition unless you explicitly choose to do so. You will get an option to install to the C partition. Just do things deliberately and carefully and read the choices carefully before clicking OK.

Quote from: Salmon Trout on October 21, 2009, 03:12:15 AM

It will not wipe out your E partition unless you explicitly choose to do so. You will get an option to install to the C partition. Just do things deliberately and carefully and read the choices carefully before clicking OK.