A relative had a new PC delivered today, running XP SP2. It was autorunning
Sysprep on each boot and one of the kids accidentally opted for "build", it
then rebooted. Since then it failed to reboot properly (which is when I was
called...). In safe mode it appeared to be working okay but would switch off
for no apparent reason (unrelated to power management/system inactivity)
after about 5 mins. I did try sysprep -reseal in command mode, which I hoped
would get things back to normal (and how they should have been if the
supplier done their job properly!), but that seems to have reset everything.
It won't boot properly (freezes) and upon rebooting in safe mode it exits as
installation is incomplete. I tried system recovery (using my own copy of
XP, as a disk wasn't supplied with it), that asks for the administrator
password which it won't accept (even though I reset it to my own choice with
ERD Commander's Locksmith).

Anyway to rescue this situation or is a complete reinstall required?

TIA,
Gary