laptop OS problems

[mysticphysh]

Ok, my brother recently bought a used laptop. He says for a day it worked ok, but then messed up.

When booted, none of the shortcuts or the taskbar load. Taking a look at the task manager, I found that explorer.exe wasn't loading. Using the command promt, I found that the file isn't missing and when I try to execute it in command prompt, it only flashes on for about a blink of an eye before going away.

I'm thinking the explorer.exe is corrupted through virus or something other means. Here's the problem.

The CD ROM doesn't work, so I can't use the Windows XP disk to fix the problem. I tried using a flashdrive to put a copy of an uncorrupted file on, but the command prompt doesn't seem to recognize it as a drive and I dont know how else to access it.

I dont have a external CD ROM or harddrive to use.

Anybody have any thoughts on how I can get an uncorrupted explorer.exe on there???

 

[H4x3r]

do a network install of XP if you can

 

[Osiris]

you cant booot from the CD when you restart?

 

[H4x3r]

the cd-rom drive doesn't work, or at least thats what i understand

 

[mysticphysh]

Yeah, CD ROM doesn't work, otherwise, I'd just boot from that and fix the problem.

I have no clue how to set up a network install using command prompt on windows xp. I'm not sure I want to do a complete install of the OS anyways. I think I'd rather just wait 2 weeks until my buddy gets back from vacation and use his external drive. I was just hoping to get it done sooner.