SP3 Upgrade on Dell XPS - Disaster

The following may be too convolved for this forum; if so please let me know.

I finally gave into usoft's urging to upgrade my Dell XPS WinXP OS to SP3. Unfortunately, I joined WindowsBBS about 3 hours too late and missed warnings on SP3! XPS went into open loop start and stop mode. After my spending hours on phone with Dell rep who helped a little I am still clueless about what to do.

My Dell XPS came with Vista and my IT guy (long gone) converted to WinXP at my request. Initally while on phone with Dell WinXP in Repair (R) mode could not see hardv drive(HD). Dell tech did get me to convert to ATA HD mode from AHC1 mode (BIOS likes AHC1 mode) so WinXP install disk in R mode could talk to the HD. I finally got to "see" HD using a utlities on WinXP install disk. Apparently a Dell Media Direct Partition(Originally from Vista install) is now Partition1 ,C:, and my 30 GByte WinXP partition, originally C:, is open space. My E,F, and G partitions are still there with somewhat odd data descriptors. I am tempted to erase the new C: partition (10 GB Media Direct app) and either reaname 30 Gb open space as C: or reload windows XP into original space. Are there 'dos-like' utilities out there that I can load from a CD to rename partitions (non-destructively)? The XPS has only a CD drive so my many Win98 utilities floppies in present form are useless.

I think first thing to do is somehow slave drive to another computer and download data.

Regards

pk

 

Hi pricek,

Getting data off the hard disk would be my first priority.

Vista uses a slightly different NTFS than previous versions and I am not aware of any utility that changes the hard disk drive letters.

Would be better if you remove all the partitions & start afresh with Windows XP.

 

rsinfo:

Thank you. I agree with your analysis. I was able to save all of my data using a hook up to a sata cable on a local PC. I am running down to local Computer depot today to buy a copy of XP Pro. Still wondering how to disable the Dell Media connections but will cross that bridge later.

regards

pk