Choose Reinstall, After you press the F8 key to accept the license agreement you will be given a option to do a epair install by pressing the R key. that's the one you're looking for.

I have seen this before. Your current install is so messed up that the XP install program doesn't even see it and doesn't give you the option jto do a repair. Sorry bu in my opinion it's time to wipe the drive and start fresh.

One big thing you want to look at. Files do NOT just get corrupted or go missing for NO reason. So I would think you have some type of hardware problem and you should run the Dell diagnostic program and check all the hardware and also run the HDD makers utility to check the drive.

Ed

Thanks for your prompt reply, however I do not get the option to repair.

After accepting the license agreement I get the following:

The following list shows the existing partions and unpartioned space on this computer.

Use the up and down arrow keys to select an item in the list

• To set up winwows XP on the selected item press ENTER
• To create a partion in the unpartioned space, press C
• To delete the selected partion, press D

 

28616 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

-:   Partition 1  [FAT]             47MB  <  40 MB free  >
C: Partition 2  [NTFS]    28561MB  <  23403MB free >

     unpartitioned space       8MB

Arfa

 

Message Edited by Arfa on 01-02-2005 08:27 AM