SFC Problems

System: Dell XPS 410
Operating System: XP Pro MCE 2005 Pre-Installed, Key on Sticker

System File Checker asks for XP Pro SP2 CD. I have done the following so far


Edited Registry Entries


Copied my XP MCE 2005 Diskset to my HD:


and, dumped the i386 folder from Disk 1 onto root of C drive:


That allowed me to get to maybe 12% before it still asked for the invisible CD. There is also no c:\windows\i386 and it did the same thing even using c:\windows\system32\dllcache as the 'SourcePath'. So basically I am really stumped. Do I have to resort to format as I doubt I can do repair unless I am missing something.

 

With this message, you can sometimes just click retry and it will be accepted.

If not read this, it involves changing the word 'Professional' to 'Home' in two files; Fp40ext.inf and Ims.inf. Have a look here http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=897128

 

I have cured most problems like that by copying the I386 folder to a hard drive and then editing the Registry key to point to that drive. The mistake that many people make when editing the key named setup, as in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

is that they put too much information in the value string. DO NOT include anything but the drive information, like C:\ or D:\. DO NOT add I386 to the string. The SFC tool is programmed to examine the path designated and look for the I386 folder. If you have something like C:\I386 listed as the path, it will look inside the I386 folder and fail to find an I386 folder. That's pretty lame but it's the way the tool works.

Of course it's not necessary to copy the I386 folder to your hard drive but it does relieve you of hunting up the CD each time you run SFC. You can edit the path to point to your designated CD-ROM drive and be sure to leave off the I386 as mentioned before.

 

I had to edit my post cause of various Imageshack compatiblity issues.