Hard drive reformatting with OEM version?

[Guest]

I recently ordered a new box and a copy of Windows XP OEM. The blurb in the
catalog said that "all data will be lost" when XP is installed.

I currently have my hard drive partitioned into three parts. Will XP only
mess with C: or will it wipe all three partitions?

Next question, not as important as the first. Netware will span physical
drives and make them look like one to the user. Is there any software
available for XP that will do this?

Thanks.

 

[John John]

I recently ordered a new box and a copy of Windows XP OEM. The blurb in the
catalog said that "all data will be lost" when XP is installed.

I currently have my hard drive partitioned into three parts. Will XP only
mess with C: or will it wipe all three partitions?

Windows OEM versions cannot do "upgrades", you can't upgrade an older
operating system with an OEM version, you must do a clean install. To
that effect you must format the drive on which you want to install
Windows XP and all data on the selected partition will be erased, the
information on other partitions will not be affected. That being said
keep in mind that "stuff happens". Anything can happen when you install
an operating system, user errors, software glitches, hardware glitches,
etc. Things rarely go bad but if the data on your other partitions is
valuable you will certainly have backups to rely on in case things go bad.

Next question, not as important as the first. Netware will span physical
drives and make them look like one to the user. Is there any software
available for XP that will do this?

Are you getting rid of your Novell server in favour of a Windows peer
network? If you go to a peer network you are probably going to miss
your Novell, but I digress, that is beside the point. You can use
Dynamic Disks to accomplish what you want, you need XP Pro to do this,
HP Home doesn't do Dynamic Disks.

John

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Windows OEM versions cannot do "upgrades", you can't upgrade an older
operating system with an OEM version, you must do a clean install. To that
effect you must format the drive on which you want to install Windows XP and
all data on the selected partition will be erased, the information on other
partitions will not be affected. That being said keep in mind that "stuff
happens". Anything can happen when you install an operating system, user
errors, software glitches, hardware glitches, etc. Things rarely go bad but
if the data on your other partitions is valuable you will certainly have
backups to rely on in case things go bad.

You didn't aswer the question about whether the WinXP OEM
installation would affect other partitions. I believe that answer to that
is "No, it won't." It will affect only the partition to which you direct
the installer. But pay close attention to the dialog at the start of the
installation process. Here's some background:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

*TimDaniels*

 

[Dave B.]

Not quite correct, The setup routine will format any drive you tell it to,
it will delete any partition you tell it to.

 

[Robert Moir]

I recently ordered a new box and a copy of Windows XP OEM. The blurb in
the
catalog said that "all data will be lost" when XP is installed.

That sounds like something specific to the custom OEM install that the new
computer came with.

I currently have my hard drive partitioned into three parts. Will XP only
mess with C: or will it wipe all three partitions?

As you've got a customised OEM installer by the sounds of things, that's a
question for the vendor. Windows itself would not do this, but then windows
itself won't wipe all your data off a disk just for giggles during an
install (OEM installs have to be "clean" in the sense that they need to be
fresh installs of Windows rather than upgrades or whatever, but they don't
delete *data* or wipe the disk for the hell of it)

Next question, not as important as the first. Netware will span physical
drives and make them look like one to the user. Is there any software
available for XP that will do this?

Sure. It's called Windows XP... heh.

Disk Manager has this facility.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308424
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...ddocs/en-us/sag_diskconcepts_15.mspx?mfr=true

Up to you but I strongly suggest you don't use this facility unless you
backup the data on the spanned partition on a very regular basis. If one of
the drives in the spanned volume set hiccups you'll lose all the data on the
spanned volume regardless of what physical disk it's stored on.

Rob

 

[Guest]

It turned out that it didn't reformat the drive. It did wipe out my old
windows and the registry but everything else on C: stayed there and it didn't
touch D: or E:

 

[David B.]

Just the way it should have been, the setup routine won't format a partition
unless you tell it to.

 

[NZSchoolTech]

But he could be using a recovery disk that does erase the whole partition. A
lot of these use Ghost, which loads a whole partition at a time and
therefore wipes out everything else on it.

 

[David B.]

Then he wouldn't be using an XP OEM disk like he stated he was using, he
would be using an OEM recovery kit.