Repair installation - no disk

I need to Perform a Repair Installation of XP but every discussion of how to do this that I have seen requires that one boots from an XP CD. I don't have an XP CD and have never seen one. I must have set up and configured a dozen XP boxes but I have never seen an XP CD, the machines have always come with the OS installed and no CD. what's a person to do? Is there anyway to do a repair installation without the CD? I believe there is an equivalent of an installation disk on a separate partition of the machine but have no idea of how to access it. It is an HP Pavilion, btw. Any ideas will be gladly and humbly appreciated.

Desktop, but should be the same for a laptop.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...cname=bph07143

Or you can borrow Windows XP CD to perform repair.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try both and let you know what transpires.

Cheers

If you borrow CD, it must be same XP version, and same SP, as installed on your computer.

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I need to Perform a Repair Installation of XP but every discussion of how to do this that I have seen requires that one boots from an XP CD.

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Note that using an HP recovery disk will restore the computer to the configuration it had when it left the factory, including all of the bloatware. It's an image disk. You'll also lose all custom settings and all personal data (photos, music, documents, etc.) when using one. Make sure you back up all of your customer's "stuff" before going this route!

An XP CD will have just the operating system and it can be used to install XP over itself (a repair install) to restore corrupted files or what-have-you. You also have a recovery console option, basically DOS emulation. It's worth buying one to have on hand if you're going to do any appreciable amount of work with computers.

As my friend says:
"One will need Windows CD sooner, or later"

Well I followed the advice about getting HP recovery discs from HP. Turns out they are not available for my box. How do you spell planned obsolesance?

Tried to implement recovery from my built in recovery. No go, it just sits there and blinks at me. Reason for my OS problem is that I had problems with the of/on switch which entailed cold booting a lot, which I think is the source of my OS problems. Lesson learned - Don't but the cheapest computer you can find. True that software doesn't wear out, but hardware sure does..

Anyway, I'm off to find someone to let me use their XP disc.

See ya.

A viable , legal option.
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...rating-Systems

OEM cds.

clarencex--

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Well I followed the advice about getting HP recovery discs from HP

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Did you ask HP for a full XP CD? Many PC suppliers will sell you an OS CD for a nominal amount--like $10-20. This assumes you can supply info on the purchase of the PC.

Hmm. good idea, thanks for the help.