XP Box not working right

[DaveImme]

We have an XP box here that has two FAT's at boot up. I see this when we boot up and it shows two OS's to load, but they are the same. I do not know how this user got this messed up, but I was trying to go in with the XP CD (Dell) so I could 'repair' the OS, but it calls for administrators password. Starting it at boot, it takes administrator1, but when I need to enter it for OS repair, it says it is incorrect. What do I do here?

I'm not sure what to try here, except to copy critical stuff off the box and reformat and do a fresh install of XP. Any ideas? I think the big problem is that some OS files are corrupted.....

 

[Bobg1]

I dont know about xp, bu that sort of thing happened with nt if you did a reinstall over an existing one. Could be the same type thing, if its actually doing it while xp is loading. If it is you may be able to go into the registry and clean it up.

 

[bcastner]

right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, System Startup and Recover, and edit the startup options.