[jimmygreen]

I have an old Acer travelmate which I used at work before I retired fitted with XP professional. I did not have any of the recovery discs when I brought it home.During a download recently it has just crashed.When I go into f8 to select a recovery option, in each case after I select an option it then takes me into a further page and asks me to select the operating system which is always only identified as XP professional. As soon as I click on this the screen goes into black mode again. Does anyone have any advice as to how recover from this. I do have files which I need and have not backed up since mid year as I have been away.I can obtain a windows recovery disc and also the Acer recovery disc.Using these would I lose any of my files?If I use f10 would I be able to access my files to recover?I have bought a new computer with Vista home premium. Even though the acer is not responding could I access the acer hard drive and see the files by porting a USB transfer cable across from the new to the old?Any advice is welcome, im desperate and frustrated.best wishes for the season-- mike

[Hybr!d]

Moved to the Windows Operating Systems forum.

[philthomas]

If you have the XP Pro Installation disk, you could try a Repair, by booting up with disk inserted.
You could also look at the Acer Recovery disk and see if the options include a non destructive recovery, which retains your data.

Personally, if the data is important to you, I would remove the drive from the old Laptop and put it in an External enclosure, like this one : http://svp.co.uk/product/edgedupe_us...enclosure_5943 and pull your data off to the new Laptop ... this will be much safer.
The USB Link Cable will not work unless you can boot the old Laptop into XP.

HTH