Re-installing Win7 Home Premium Files

Greetings All,

New here and have a few questions and could use some assistance.

I have a disabled brother (service connected) in another State and have no direct access to his computer...He has a Dell desktop with sufficient SATA hard drive space, 2 gigs ram, and running Win7 home edition 32bits...He no longer has any discs for same.

Problem:
He started (or attempted to) start his computer and left either an audio or video disc in the optical drive..Since then, his computer will not boot/start. I have been at it for 4 days with him on the phone and all I can remember (I am really burned out with this!) he gets error messages, the main one seems to be "Windows Explorer has stopped working"

I can get him into "safe" mode and hit a restore point or, fix errors, etc but, his computer still will not boot. He made an "emergency boot disc from the installation before it "crapped out" but, it does little good.....I have attempted to get him to utilize "system file checker, fix mbr and so on and it seems we are getting closer but, "no cigar"...We hit a wall with a message that there is still a "fix" pending but stopped right there before we killed each other on the phone (grin).

I have a Dell desktop similar to his and as a last ditch effort, will have him send me his drive to see what I can do with it...Can I rebuild/restore/re-install Win 7 OS files w/out data loss and if so, what is the procedure with this?....Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the reply....

The disc was removed easily and was never stuck.

Something got screwed up in his computer and I am running out of ideas....I don't run Win 7, I run XP and am happy with it.....I don't want to hack a copy of Win 7 if I can help it....I have sent him multiple discs (hirens, Ultimate boot disc, Essentials pro, etc and it is VERY difficult to attempt this over the phone...I suppose my more focused question is if I can install Win 7 (should I locate same by any source) to REPAIR his system w/out killing all his data.

SIW2 said:

If it is not hardware problem, then it should be fixable.
It is not trivial to explain all the steps you might have to go through .

Better if you can send him the installation media. He could install onto another partition and later fish out any files he wants from the original installation.

he could do with some more ram as well .. so could you. 2gb is tight nowadays.

############################

*Caps are NOT yelling and only serve to segregate portions of the conversation*

If it is not hardware problem, then it should be fixable.
MAN, I HOPE SO. HE HAS SOME MEDICAL RECORDS THAT HE NEEDS TO SAVE AND TO AD INSULT TO INJURY, A WHILE BACK I SENT HIM A 1TB EXT HD TO BACK THE DARNED THING UP!

It is not trivial to explain all the steps you might have to go through .
I NEVER IMPLIED IT WAS AND LIKE I SAID, I HAVE BEEN AT IT FOR MORE THAN A FEW DAYS.

Better if you can send him the installation media.
WHICH I DON'T HAVE AS STATED

He could install onto another partition and later fish out any files he wants from the original installation.
HE WOULD BE SENDING THE HD TO ME FOR "SURGERY" ......PARTITIONING I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO RISK AT THIS TIME....I THOUGHT THAT SOMEPLACE I MAY HAVE READ THAT WHEN INSTALLING WIN 7 WHEN/WHERE THERE IS ALREADY ONE PRESENT, THAT THERE IS A SECTION-BAR-BUTTON THAT ALLOWS THE USER TO SELECT TO "REPAIR" THE EXISTING INSTALLATION TO OVERWRITE THE FILES, WHICH SHOULD CORRECT THE PROBLEMS W/OUT DELETING THE SAVED DATA.

SIW2 said:

If you can get installation media to him - worth him booting that and trying system restore first.

System Restore

A repair install can only be performed if you can boot into the os.

Otherwise, install from booted media without formatting the target moves the previous installation into a folder called windows.old. That can be accessed afterwards.

Or install onto a separate partition.

######################

So, I am shafted then to attempt to repair system files.

SIW2 said:

@WIN7 NIGHTMARE



enable private messaging in your user control panel.



That can only be done from inside the running os.

#################################

enable private messaging in your user control panel.

I looked but, could not locate it.