[olsureshot]

I just bought a refurbished IBM Thinkpad T42 2373 with Windows XP. I had a problem develop the very day I bought it and tried to run the IBM rescue/recovery option that shows up when you boot the computer.

Well, I got impatient and stupidly interrupted the recovery process. In my defense, I had never used an IBM before and figured that the option would still be available to try again when I rebooted. Unfortunately, now when the computer boots up it just starts up Windows right away and doesn't give me the opportunity to run system recovery again.
Windows won't start anymore, and it tells me that its system32 file is corrupt and needs to be repaired.

I don't have a warranty for the refurbished computer. Should I buy a Windows XP disc and install it, or could it be repaired with someone else's Windows disc?

I don't really know much about installing or repairing Windows, since I've never had to do it before. I've never even had a computer come with a Windows disc.

[richardtryinghard]

Hi you an use someone esles xp disc but your product key code, i installed xp pro on my thinkpad T20 easy enough. esc on start up boot from disc follow instructions

[richardtryinghard]

Try repairing first same way, Then you may not have to reinstall drivers for whatever you have on your system.

[Carbon]

Since the recovery partition is separate, something like DBAN should be able to wipe the Windows partition. Then you can go ahead and run the recovery all over again, and let it finish this time :)