Seeking advice on best Software to FIX corrupted XP systems

[Mike Schwartz]

> Hi experts,
> OT:  What is the best Software to clean up corrupted XP systems? Your
> advice will be appreciated.
> Thanks
> Old tony

     It depends what you think is wrong with them. "Corrupted XP systems"
doesn't tell us much.

     Do you think the registry is corrupt?  Will the systems boot at all?

     Is the hard drive corrupt?

     Is the hardware, itself, working OK, or, for example, are the hard
drives wearing out?

     Is your anti-virus software telling you that you have been hit with a
bug?

     Are the systems just slowing down because the hard drives are getting
full and they haven't been defragged?

     Before you do anything, you will need to back up the entire hard
drive(s) on each machine.

     Based on the fact that you say "systems" (plural) I'm going to make a
very broad suggestion that you will need to backup the data on these
systems, clean the computers up, installing additional RAM chips and hard
drives as necessary, and then re-install the Windows XP and all the other
software from scratch, including the latest anti-virus software, and then
restore ONLY the data back onto them.  (Be careful not to install any parts
of the old, corrupt software.)

     Personally, I like to pull out the old hard drive(s), (after I've
backed them up, of course), then install a fresh (or at least freshly wiped)
hard drive into each corrupt computer.  Then I reinstall the XP and the
other programs.  After that I re-attach the old drive(s) as secondary
drives.  That makes it a lot easier to pull data off the old drive without
having to mess around with tape drives.  In many cases, I leave the old
drives in the systems for a few weeks, until the customers are certain that
everything has been recovered from the old drives.  Then I yank the old
drives out and wipe them clean and use them for the next batch of computers
that I am cleaning.

Mike Schwartz