Windows Vista Vista damaged my XP Pro?

Hi

I have got an issue with XP Pro that was caused by trying to paste a file onto the partition which contains XP Pro while running Vista RC1 x64 from another Partition on a separate hdd. Vista came up with it's system settings warning. I clicked ok.
It took a long time doing something (progress bar ran from top left corner of explorer in vista) then told me I couldn't save on that drive, so I chose another drive, saved the file and rebooted into XP.

After booting to XP Pro I kept getting a BSOD (no minidumps) So I booted from the original cd and tried to list the contents of my os - An error occurred trying to list the contents so I ran chkdsk /r on the drive.

When it next booted it ran a check disk on every single partition, and booted into the desktop. All my icons had been placed on the left, my taskbar had reverted to single line height (from double) and my quick launch icons had gone. they only other problem was my AVG Pro AV/Firewall crashing (a first) so i rebooted again. I reinstalled AVG Pro but it cannot update and tells me reboot and reinstall (done. get same problem) it ran chkdsk on all my partitions again and then booted with no problems. (after about 5 reboots it stopped chkdsk'ing all my partitions)

I went about to change my desktop back to how like it, and found these problems.
Once my taskbar was back to double line height I tried to hide some of the quick launch icons only to find there is no slider to the right of them. my open windows can no longer minimise to the taskbar and can only be selected through alt+TAB.
It is exactly the same as the problem mentioned here but the vb script mentioned doesn't work for me, and if I try to stop Explorer.exe from processes - my taskbar never reappears.

My desktop icons are also locked and cannot be moved, even after trying different settings and rebooting.

I also cannot paste at all in Explorer either right-clicking or ctrl+v. I can however save a screenshot to the clipboard and paste it into Photoshop. I can also copy/paste from a text file into a program installation.
Start>Search does not work - nothing happens. If I click search in folder view I get a blank blue screen in the left pane of Explorer.

All my shared drives can no longer be seen on the network. - might be to do with avg problem, but it's the same with the firewall component turned off.
I have unshared them, ran chkdsk from windows, rebooted and re shared with no success.

I have tried to run a repair install on my XP as mentioned here
but although my XP boots up, when Windows setup is run from the cd it shows my XP partition as D: and does not give the choice to repair it.
Other problems noticed so far. All Office 2003 programs are misbehaving. detect and repair says windows installer is not installed correctly.

I have just ran fixmbr from the recovery console and also ran the sfc from within XP and now my open windows minimise to just above the taskbar rather than going nowhere.

Windows setup still recognises my XP partition as D: and thinks my music partition (normally M: ) is C:
I have disconnected all drives in my machine apart from the hdd containing XP and the SCSI array with Vista x64 on it and now windows setup recognises that there's an OS installed and gives me the option to repair.
Which I am doing.

I have just noticed Arie's post at the end of this thread. Could the system volume folders be the problem?

btw. my repair has been stuck on 34 minutes remaining for a long time now....

help!

Chris

 

update.

I restarted after lock up and when it reached 34 mins it told me that it was after a driver for my ethernet adapter. i keep copies of all my drivers in my doc's - which is on a seperate hdd! after rebooting with said hdd connected I ran some more tests. did you know that on a repair install if your OS if looking for a driver you have a 1 in 4 chance of it telling you? so restart setup a few times before you give up!
I installed drivers and it has now finished the repair. unfortunatly it now doesn't recognise my USB mouse so another reboot (plugged a ps2 mouse in) is required.
and.......
..
..
first reactions - It works!

Chris

 

Would disabling System Restore on one (or both) OS's stop this from happening?

Chris