During OS repair, contents of C and D drive swapped - how do I fix

  • Thread starter Thread starter DeadDancers
  • Start date Start date
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DeadDancers

Hello,

I hope someone can help. During a recent storm, I was in the middle of
shutting my computer down when it flickered and died - power surge, I guess.
When I booted it up again hours later, it said the system registry had been
damaged and I needed to repair my OS.

So I popped in the disc and went at it. When it asked what drive I wanted to
install windows on, I told it C drive, like last time.

When it finished installing however.. ALL the files that had previously been
on C drive (My main drive for all installations) were now on D drive (and not
showing up in the start menu at all. )

Everything that had been on D drive is now on C drive.

Whenever I try to open a program like Firefox or Explorer, it acts like it's
the first time I've used it and asks for preferences.

Is there any way I can just.. swap.. this stuff back over? Or do I have to
uninstall everything and reinstall it again?
 
DeadDancers said:
I hope someone can help. During a recent storm, I was in the middle
of shutting my computer down when it flickered and died - power
surge, I guess. When I booted it up again hours later, it said the
system registry had been damaged and I needed to repair my OS.

So I popped in the disc and went at it. When it asked what drive I
wanted to install windows on, I told it C drive, like last time.

When it finished installing however.. ALL the files that had
previously been on C drive (My main drive for all installations)
were now on D drive (and not showing up in the start menu at all. )

Everything that had been on D drive is now on C drive.

Whenever I try to open a program like Firefox or Explorer, it acts
like it's the first time I've used it and asks for preferences.

Is there any way I can just.. swap.. this stuff back over? Or do I
have to uninstall everything and reinstall it again?
Click to expand...

It looks like you did not do a repair installation - it looks like you did a
clean installation/parallel installation.

It looks like you did not pay close enough attention to what partition/drive
you were selecting when you needed to select where to install (you do not
just look at the supposed letter, but the drive size/partition size.)

If you had done a repair installation, you would have done this:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

You may still be able to do this with the installation likely still on your
original drive - could try it.

However - might as well ask now - how are your backups?
 
DeadDancers said:
Hello,

I hope someone can help. During a recent storm, I was in the middle of
shutting my computer down when it flickered and died - power surge, I
guess. When I booted it up again hours later, it said the system
registry had been damaged and I needed to repair my OS.

So I popped in the disc and went at it. When it asked what drive I
wanted to install windows on, I told it C drive, like last time.

When it finished installing however.. ALL the files that had
previously been on C drive (My main drive for all installations) were
now on D drive (and not showing up in the start menu at all. )

Everything that had been on D drive is now on C drive.

Whenever I try to open a program like Firefox or Explorer, it acts
like it's the first time I've used it and asks for preferences.

Is there any way I can just.. swap.. this stuff back over? Or do I
have to uninstall everything and reinstall it again?
Click to expand...

You can't "uninstall" via Windows as your old registry is gone. You
destroyed it when you did a new OS install. If the programs' folders have
an uninstall in them you could use it. Or, you can either...

1. Re-install them "over the top" of the old ones but they won't have your
program preferences. You could also just delete the programs and
reinstall...that will put shortcuts into the Start menu but you will still
have to re-do preferences.

- OR -

2. Just re-do the preferences when asked for them. They were in the old
registry which you desroyed. Most programs will just make new ones (when
you supply them), some may not run at all. You will have to manually make
new shortcuts for your Start menu.


IOW, you screwed up.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
dadiOH said:
You can't "uninstall" via Windows as your old registry is gone. You
destroyed it when you did a new OS install. If the programs' folders
have an uninstall in them you could use it. Or, you can either...

1. Re-install them "over the top" of the old ones but they won't
have your program preferences. You could also just delete the
programs and reinstall...that will put shortcuts into the Start menu
but you will still have to re-do preferences.

- OR -

2. Just re-do the preferences when asked for them. They were in the
old registry which you desroyed. Most programs will just make new
ones (when you supply them), some may not run at all. You will have
to manually make new shortcuts for your Start menu.


IOW, you screwed up.
Click to expand...

Another possibility is that you now have two XP installs, the old one and
the new one. Each might be on a different drive or both could be on one; in
the latter case, the new Windows folder would probably be named something
like "Windows2". You might want to look and see.

If you do have two, you could boot to the original and all should be as it
was before; if that is the case all you need do is repair it, figure out how
to make a boot.ini (if you don't already have one) so that you boot to the
repaired OS in the future and get rid of the install that is your post
subject.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
when there is a power
failure during a read/
write of the registry.

usually a chkdsk (check disk)
is all that is needed to
fix and reindex the files.

however, if you reinstalled
windows and it is now
located on a different
drive,

then you likely still have
the original o.s. still on
its original location.

you need to double
check your drives
via the explorer and
let us know if you have
a windows system folder
on each drive.

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- Microsoft Partner
- @hotmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen
 
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