I have an lsass.exe error when starting XP. Microsoft say it is due to a corrupt xp install, and the only fix is to reinstall with master cds, losing all data. Have tried all boot combinations, it always goes to this error. I have managed to be able to see the hard drive by booting from a win98 startup disk and using ntfsdos to mount the hard disk which is ntfs. I have copied some data, but can only copy to a floppy, so larger files are impractical to save. Can anyone help me start xp, or any way of being able to save larger files? error at startup is - lsass.ese system error When trying to update a password this return status indicates that the value provided on the current password is incorrect It then goes into a loop, rebooting, but showing the same error. Have tried xp startup disks, etc. It is a preinstalled XP home version, with no XP CD, just 4 recovery CD's to run after using a startup diskette. Packard Bell imedia, 1.4GHz etc. Any help appreciated, thanks Paul

you could purchase an xp cd or borrow one and do a parallel install and then use boot to the parallel install and recover all your data,as long as you have a cdrw or zip drive installed to pull the data off the drive, or a second hard drive installed or you could install second hard drive and install xp to it and move the data to the second hard drive,alternatively use someones xp computer and setup yours as slave and see if you can pull the data off using the other windows if it can access yours.the lsass.exe may have a solution i haven't seen it yet

Thanks. I have a XP professional CD. Can I use this to do a parallel install? Do I need to partition the hard drive and install on a new drive letter or can I install it on the same drive as the corrupt XP. Then, if XP pro installs, I use the cdr to copy stuff from the original hard drive? Sorry to be a pain, but can you give me some instructions. I have had a search on parallel installation but I can't really understand exactly how to do this. Thanks again Paul

OK, I tried installing XP pro. I used ntfsdos to see my hard drive, but it only allows me to read the drive, not write. I could not make a directory, or copy the i386 folder from the xp cd. When I tried to run winnt.exe from the cd to start setup, it said an internal setup error has occoured. Could not find a place for swap file. Anyway round this without buying ntfsdos pro for $300?