Unfortunately my 3 1/2 year old desktop is toast, it needs a new motherboard and the parts and labor will be as much as buying a new one. Only problem with that (besides the expense) is that I still need XP for a few important things.
I'd like to get my old 2001 Sony Vaio running again but I screwed it up a few months ago. I was going to lend it to neighbors after their computer pooped out. I used a shred program to delete personal financial info and it managed to delete something in the OS (XP Home) which was on the same partition. Now, a regular boot says it can't load the OS. Boot from the Sony Recovery Disk starts the process but then gives a "disk access:sense operation failed" message. Trying to get into Safe Mode gets an error code that something in the BIOS can't be loaded.
If I can get a regular XP Home installation disk instead of the Sony proprietary disks, would that possibly help? If not, does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm trying to avoid an expensive repair on an outdated computer.
Thanks for any advice (other than telling me to get a Mac).