So, while I was at school, one of the computers at work went "down," so one of the guys at work tried to fix it by reinstalling windows. Problem is, he installed the wrong freaking version. The machine had XP Pro on it and he installed XP Home. Thankfully, he didn't format the hard drive, so everything is still "there."

How can I get this shit back without having to reinstall everything? I tried looking for the Backup.cab and Boot.cab files to undo the XP Home installation, but it didn't seem to make one during the installation. Apparently, it only gets made if you go from Home --> Pro, not the reverse. I really don't wanna have to stay late today to fix this stupid idiot's mistake...

2/17/2006 3:13:18 PM

What is the extent of the damage? Is it acting like a clean install or can you still access your applications and data?

2/18/2006 1:53:38 AM

if he downgraded, he did so through a clean install.

you gonna have to either "upgrade" or do another clean install.

2/18/2006 1:38:32 PM

i had to reformat. all of the folder permissions were just fucked up because of the XP Home overlay. fucking idiot

2/18/2006 8:50:18 PM

if you need to retrieve any files, i can do that for you

2/18/2006 8:56:04 PM

nah, taint nuthing imperative on that machine.

2/20/2006 2:30:02 AM

Damn, I was hoping there was some clever way of fixing it. aaron, so um, how much total company time (yours and his/hers) did this person just waste ... over what normally would have probably been a 5 minute fix?

2/20/2006 5:18:44 AM

You would think that since this took place at your work there wouldn't even be a copy of XP Home lying around. Do you have some machines with Pro and some with Home where you work?

2/20/2006 7:44:27 AM

unfortunately, yeah, we have some mixed machines. i don't know where the heck he got the XP Home CD from, though, as I have made those damned hard to find...

oh, and this guy ended up making me do about 10 hours and more of work... At 30 bux an hour, I'm cool with that, but the boss aint too happy. What can ya do, though

2/22/2006 4:46:51 AM