Re: Just re-install Windows XP

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:25:48 -0700, sillyputty
<karmictaragem@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 13, 8:11 am, "Ken Blake, MVP"
<kbl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As usual, Windoze makes most things harder and more complicated than
it should be.

If you do it correctly, reinstalling Windows means formatting the
drive. That entails the loss of *everything* that was on the drive.

I thought that was the purpose of fdisk?


No, it's part of the installation. No need to fdisk and format first.


And how can it be a
"reinstall" if all the data is wiped during formatting?


Words mean different things to different people. Whenever there's any
possibility of confusion, it's always best to clarify exactly what
*you* mean when you ask for help.



That almost certainly means that you didn't reinstall it correctly. In
your case, since you apparently don't have a backup of your data,
that's a good sign, and everything may not be lost.

I did an in-place XP reinstall by the book using MS's instructions.


Good! Then your data is presumably not gone. But you didn't make it
clear in your original message that that's what you did. If you don't
specify that you did an in-place, or repair, installation and just say
you reinstalled, *I* interpret that as a clean reinstallation, because
that's what most people mean when they say they "reinstalled."



My
drive wasn't formatted; my data was left intact except for a folder
named 'Backup' on a secondary drive, which is a shame as there was a
lot of important data I lost. Obviously, I learned my lesson to not
trust XP to preserve my data during a reinstall and back it up.


It's not a matter of trusting XP or trusting anything or anybody else.
Note the following two points:

1. If you data is important to you, should be backing up regularly. It
is always possible that a hard drive crash, user error, nearby
lightning strike, virus attack, even theft of the computer, can cause
the loss of everything on your drive. As has often been said, it's not
a matter of whether you will have such a problem, but when.

2. *Especially* when undertaking any big step, like a Windows
reinstallation, you should be sure you have a good current backup.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
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Relevant Pages

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