Could anyone please explain any benefits to running my OS. Disk,
over my existing programmes,
would this rectify or even repair
any minor probs. such as registry errors,
and help to rectify any missing shortcuts etc.
in preference to doing a dreaded Reformat.

Thanks.

Harry.

You should be able to repair your XP installation
by typing sfc \scannow (space between c and \)
in the start/run window.

However, I tried it recently and although I have
XP Pro SP2 installed it asked for the SP2 cd (which
I just happened to have got from a magazine) then
couldn't read it.  Later it asked for the XP Pro
disk and couldn't read that either.

One day perhaps we won't have to rely on
Microsoft to keep our computers running.

   The repair parts of the WinXP CD are very minimal and are usually of no help.  As far as the registry is concerned, it can only repair certain parts of the registry but those parts seldom fail.  The biggest benefit of the CD is to reinstall WinXP.
   We do have the XP Recovery CD Maker (see http://xp-recovery-cd.com/index.htm) which makes a boot CD which can recover the registry.