Reinstall win xp questions

gman76

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Mar 21, 2006
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I have a drive that is partitioned into C and D, and intend to overwrite the C partition completely. The machine had previously been thru a virus/trojan attack that I already did a "repair" with the system disk that I created a new system folder called "WinXP". The "Windows" system folder is still on the C drive but doesnt do anything. I've confirmed this by looking at the boot.ini file and see that the machine boots from the WinXP directory.

Now, I have questions about the "My Documents" folder which I previously had pointed over to my D drive (music, video, personal data) by changing the desktop shortcut property path. I also noticed that WinXP_user has a directory. I recently booted into safe mode and was noticing (in a DOS screen) that the OS seems to associate the shortcuts from C with directory names on the D drive. But when I boot to windows, I dont see those same names. (I'm not sitting at my home PC now to give good examples, and sorry if I'm not explaining this very well) I'm afraid of wiping out the data in those folders on the D drive when I reinstall the OS, unintentionally. Am I safe to assume these are just linked folders? Do I need to manually rename these folders? Can someone explain this? I really dont want to lose any D drive data.
 
When you install to C:, you will not be touching anything on D:.

The discrepancy you're noticing could be the result of unknowingly logging onto different accounts (user or the default administrator) between Safe Mode and normal Windows.

In any case, before you overwrite the C: partition, look through the folders of the different accounts in Documents and Settings (you can quickly check the Properties of the account folders to see if there's an unusually large amount of data). Also check whether any programs have stored personal data in their own program folders or other locations.

Just make sure that the files you want to keep are not physically on C:.

Happy re-installing. :)
 
Honestly, given the current state of the drive, and the fact it had an infection, I'd back the data up, wipe the drive clean, and start over. You'll be much better off in the end. If the data on your D drive is really that important to you, then you should ABSOLUTELY have a method of backing it up before messing around with multiple installs, partitions, etc. External drives are cheap these days, so there's no reason not to have it backed up.
 
Honestly, given the current state of the drive, and the fact it had an infection, I'd back the data up, wipe the drive clean, and start over. You'll be much better off in the end.
That's exactly what I intend to do.

If the data on your D drive is really that important to you, then you should ABSOLUTELY have a method of backing it up before messing around with multiple installs, partitions, etc. External drives are cheap these days, so there's no reason not to have it backed up.
Yes, of course, I have backed up the D partition. I just wanted to make sure a reinstall of C doesnt touch the D drive. I dont want to spend time reloading my data from the backup drive. Also I want to reinforce my understanding of drive partitioning and its consequences. For instance, do I need to point "My Documents" back to the C drive? I have a number of folders on D that look like they are remnants of a normal C drive install, like "My Pictures", "My Videos", "My Music". I'm pretty sure a reinstall to C will not touch anything on D, but I've never had this situation before.
 
A reinstall of C won't touch D, but make sure you look at the size of the partitions before formatting them. Sometimes the drive letter will be changed when loading the OS so ID them by their size, not drive letter when formatting and installing.
 
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