[suewah]

I've recently experiencing a problem launching XP on a MacBook with Boot Camp. I had ran NAV to find a virus had found its way onto my machine.

My MB on start up launches directly into XP by default. But now, when I start up and I get into XP's desktop it will begin the log-off sequence and shut down. So I'm never able to access XP.

I would like to repair the XP installation. So I've gone into Leopard to launch Boot Camp Assistant and selected to Install XP. I go through the setup of XP from the CD. This is where the problem begins. I cannot see the C: partition made by Boot Camp for the XP installation. And without this I cannot go further. Any ideas?

[Big Mac]

Speaking from experience, trying to repair an XP installation is not a good idea. You're much better off backing up and reformatting the volume. Hold down option at start up to switch back to OS X, btw.

[ghporter]

I'd say to give it a try first, and THEN if it doesn't work go for nuking it from orbit.

But here's the deal: I think that there's just a glitch in the disk record of what state Windows is supposed to be in, and you can either see that's true or not pretty simply. If you installed the drivers for XP, you have a Control Panel app called "Startup Disk" which is similar to the OS X preferences pane called "Startup Disk". It allows you to change the default boot OS. And you should be able to get there by booting into Safe Mode: As soon as it starts to boot, press and hold F8. You'll get a screen called "Windows Advanced Options Menu" from which you choose "Safe Mode" (and JUST Safe Mode). Go to the Control Panel, open the Startup Disk applet and choose OS X. Now back out of everything and close Windows, choosing "Restart". The computer should restart in OS X. Next step: restart again, and this time hold down the Option key when you hear the boot chime. You'll get the option to select OS X or Windows, so choose Windows. My bet is that when you do this, Windows will start normally and will do so from then on.

If you really do need to do a repair install, here's how:
Boot from your XP install disc and choose to install XP. DO NOT press 'R" for the Recovery Console! That's a real PITA that takes some serious experience to get to work right. So you choose "Install" and then when you get to the screen that asks what partition to install on, THERE you can select to "repair an installation." Let it run and go through everything it wants to do. When it's finished (it'll tell you it's done by rebooting into XP) you can poke around to see whether or not everything works.

[Big Mac]

When I tried repairing XP on my Dell, the only thing it succeeded in doing was corrupting the MBR, FWIW.

[ghporter]

Fixing the MBR is one of the few things that the Recovery Console is good for. Get there and use the command "fixmbr" (no quotes) and RC will fix the record quite effectively. It's a pain, but that's a different issue.