Windows XP forum: Unable to boot

No easy fixes for this..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545

Can't say what prompted the problem because too many changes/variables were going on at one time, but it's back up and running, not sure either just what I did that got it going.

I'm visiting my brother-in-law (its his computer) trying to establish a dial-up internet connection for the first time. Before I can figure it out, an "expert" friend comes in and decides he needs to install a fresh XP on the D drive. (I later learn from a nephew that the original XP was sp2, the D drive XP had no SP.)

It seems that following a sudden power outage, the C: didn't boot anymore. Not sure if that was the problem, but due to timing of events it seemed as so.

Nephew gives me a XPSP2 CDrom (I'm not at home). After reading and studying the MS instructions for recovering from corrupt registry (can't print, D drive has the internet connection, but no printer installed), I tried checking to see if I could get to the Recovery console while booted to the D drive and running setup on the CDrom.

Figuring it would inspect the hard drives for previous installations and ask if I wanted to repair one I proceeded until I relized it was doing an installation (which drive, I couldn't tell). Upon completion and reboot, I chose the the C drive XP, got the Safe Mode menu and chose use last known good configuration (which I had tried before without success) and lo and behold it boots and everything is working.

When I boot to D drive, I get prompts for the "new" instatllation configuration. So I figure it had upgrade the D drive from Base XP to SP2.

Why that made a difference and permitted the C drive to be able to go back to the last know good config I don't know. Could be Base XP and SP2 on the same machine interact badly; could be dumb coincidence that the last know good config didn't work previously and just happened to work this time.

I'm not complaining. Thanks for the assistance.