Comments for How should I reinstall Windows?

Comment from john ball on 2008-10-11

2008-10-12T03:02:00Z

i installed extra memory on my pc running ME after doing this I have beeunable to start my pc it starts to boot then eventually comes up with no fixed drives found and then freezes with this message how do i reinstall windows on this machine

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A comment on: How should I reinstall Windows?

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Comment from Richard Harper on 2008-08-14

2008-08-14T18:44:31Z

I have a partitioned drive. Windows 98 is on C and Windows 2000 is on D. I used an old version of Partition Magic (on C) to partition. I can not even boot up on 98 anymore (for a long time), and Partition Magic will not start even by clicking the exe. program under 98 on C. If I do an image copy of D on another drive, reformat main drive to D and then copy image back to it, will it work as if partition was never there, or will things have been left on C that I must have for D to work by itself? I want to do a repair install on D for Windows 2000, but want to get rid of partition and reformat first and have no logical C drive since I have been using D for years anyway. D, now, must be using drivers from C for original equipment like sound card (?), or did the installation of 2000 on D move all of those drivers over on installation? Advise, please. Thanks for all your help and site. I am 72 on fixed income or would buy you a latte.

Unfortunately there's no way that I know of to reliable run a program installed on one partition in another OS (like Win98), using an OS installed on another partition. The problem is that when programs install themselves they often install additional information in the registry that is kept with the OS. Thus even if you were able to start the program while booted in Win XP, the registry information that it had installed isn't accessible.

When you install an OS, drivers are not "moved", unless perhaps you install "on top of" the old version, on the same drive. Sounds like you did not do that, so whatever was installed was new at the time of installation.

Really, the best advice I have for you is to back up everything, and then reformat and reinstall everything from scratch the way you want it.

-Leo

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A comment on: How should I reinstall Windows?

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Comment from michael on 2006-01-12

2006-01-12T19:28:45Z

can i reinstall windows application with dos and how.

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A comment on: How should I reinstall Windows?

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Comment from michael horowitz on 2005-12-22

2005-12-23T02:20:50Z

Another option is a disk image backup.

Programs such as Ghost, True Image, Drive Image and many others make "image" backups of an entire hard disk. Doing this every month or two provides a recent synch point (so to speak) that you can fall back to when your computer starts acting up. Restoring an "image" backup is much faster and easier than re-installing Windows and your applications.

The down side is that the software costs money, and it takes time, effort and a lot of storage space for the backups.

Also, a restore will wipe out all your data files so you either have to (a) be diligent about backing up your important files or (b) keep your data files in a separate partition from Windows and your applications.

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A comment on: How should I reinstall Windows?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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