I contracted some evil being on my system I was running malware bytes and ad-aware and seemed to be cleaning up a piece at a time. Then I restarted and got an error saying window can't start due to missing dll's I tried booting into safemode but no go. I put my windows disc in and booted to the disc, got to set up and selected repair using recovery console but can't find where I wrote down my administrator password and can't really remember if I even chose one because it's my wifes box

If there's no administrator password, just press Enter when prompted for the password.Boulder Computer MavenMicrosoft Most Valuable Professional

I tried that and got a windows prompt c:\windows and no clue what to put in there, typed hepl and hit enter and got a ginormous list of prompts but clueless as to what any of them meant

i was looking at another thread which is what i should have done to start with and prolly the easist thing to do would be to put the drive in another box and back it up and then do a clean install.. all I really need from the drive is a quickbooks program that has the wifes business on it. I have a usb box I can mount the drive in and plug it into my laptop.. only question is that my laptop runs win 7. will that be a problem since the other drive has xp pro on it?

When you boot into the XP Recovery Console successfully, you want the prompt to be C:\WINDOWS (that is a good thing).If you got that far, I would be compelled to fix the afflicted XP system.Here is a list of the XP Recovery Console commands:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058If it is your desire to just copy some files to an external device (instead of fixing your unspecified DLLs that seem to be missing), you may better enjoy a Hiren's boot CD instead of the Recovery Console. The Recovery Console has some limitations and can only access certain folders, it is sometimes intimidating and not always intuituve. The Recovery Console is not designed for salvaging/rescuing personal files - it is for fixing things.You will also not get the "QuickBooks program", using any method I can think of, but you can get the data files that QuickBooks uses and copy them to another external device and then to another system where QuickBooks is already installed. I think I would use something a little more frriendly if you are just wanting to copy files... Make yourself a Hiren's BootCD which you can download from here:http://www.hirensbootcd.net/On the left, click Download, scroll down to the bottom, choose the latest version The download link is a little hard to see. It is at the bottom of the page above the drop down list for older versions and looks like this (click this part to download the ZIP file:Direct HTTP Mirror + Torrent + Torrent MagnetClick the "Direct HTTP Mirror" link to start the download and save the ZIP file to your desktop of someplace you can remember.The ZIP file is large, so the download will probably take a little while to complete. Then unzip the download to extract the Hirens.BootCD.ISO file that will be used to create your new bootable CD.Creating a bootable CD from a .ISO file is not the same as just copying the .ISO file to a blank CD. You have to use software that understands how to burn a .ISO file to a CD to create a bootable CD.In the Hiren's ZIP file are the BurnToCD.cmd file that you can double click to launch it. The BurnToCD.cmd will use the extracted BurnCDCC.exe file to burn the .ISO file to a blank CD using your existing CD burner. You can also use your own CD burning software as long as your software is capable of creating a bootable CD from a .ISO file. Most modern CD burning programs can create bootable CDs from an .ISO image. Creating a bootable CD from an ISO image is not the same as just burning the file to a CD.If you need a free and easy CD burning software package, here is a popular free program:http://www.imgburn.com/Here are some instructions for ImgBurn:http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=61It would be a good idea to test your new bootable CD on a computer that is working.You may need to adjust the computer BIOS settings to use the CD ROM drive as the first boot device instead of the hard disk. These adjustments are made before Windows tries to load. If you miss it, you will have to reboot the system again.When booting on the Hiren's CD you will see a menu of options. Choose the Mini XP option. Then it will appear that Windows is being loaded and you will be presented with a desktop that has the look and feel of the Windows Explorer interface you are already used to using.Using the Mini XP, you can access the Internet, maneuver around your system, search for files, copy files, replace files, run various scans for malicious software, edit text files (like the c:\boot.ini) etc. There are dozens of free and useful tools included in the CD that can be used to repair your system or copy your important personal files to another device (like a USB device or external drive) in the event that you just give up and decide to reinstall your XP (hopefully you will not make that decision). Do, or do not. There is no try.I need YOUR votes and points for helpful replies and Propose as Answers. I am saving up for a pony!