Macworld Forums: Freeze During Uninstall of SP3; Now Cannot Boot - Macworld Forums

So as I was trying to uninstall SP3, my computer froze and I had to hard reboot. Now, when I try to run Windows, all I get is a black screen. I don't understand why anything was affected though because the uninstall SP3 process hadn't actually even made it to the uninstall, but was still analyzing my computer.
Is there anything I can do short of a reformat? The Windows drive isn't even mounting on my desktop anymore, so I cannot even recover my files...I run Parallels 3.0 Build 5608 and Boot Camp 2.0 . I was uninstalling SP3 to install Boot Camp 2.1, which I now know you are supposed to do before the install of SP3.

Running OS X 10.5.3 on 2.2 GHz Macbook Pro

You're not totally out of luck. What you could try is to first make a backup of that HDD. Create a new Windows XP install with Parallels and then attach that old HDD as a secondary drive to the new VM. You won't be able to boot off the old drive but you will be able to see all the files on it.