Repairing XP - advice needed please

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anne Jones
  • Start date Start date
A

Anne Jones

I need to do a repair on XP by using the CD recovery
disc, having suffered various prgram troubles, and have
backed up various data from my document, etc. and some
programs also, I do need to know a few things however.
The instructions I have been given to do the repair are:
install disc and restart; 'press any key to boot CD' will
appear; hit space bar; setup will inspect hardware and
software, and load various files required for the repair;
menu appears: press enter to continue. Next - end user
agreementappears. press F8 to agree. then:
press Esc
Press D to delete the partition
press enter to confirm
press C to create partition
press enter to choose the size
press enter to select the partition you have just created
choose format NTFS

I have installed the Backup from the CD and backed yp
various stuff, eg My documents (I have also placed
various programs in there before backing up).
What do I need to do with other programs such as
publisher, Adobe, etc ? i presume they need to be
unistalled an reinstalled post-repair.
What about the various updates I have downloaded in the
past few weeks? How can I tell if they will be present
afterwards? Will they be in the Add/Remove programs in
the Control panel (I think they may have been backed up,
but i am not 100% sure. Any way of telling? Or will I
just have to reinstall them all?
Also when I have done the repair, will my Media player
(currently version 9, upgraded a couple of weeks ago,
revert to the previous edition that I had prior to
upgrading to version 9? Should I back up MP9 and then
restore that version?
Will I have to also reactivate XP post repair?
Also I am not 100% sure what I am repairing although I am
thinking that it is a hard disk error.
With things like Norton Anti Virus, can I back that up
and restore it or as above, is it best to uninstall and
reinstall and make sure I get the updates up to date?
Please can anybody tell me exactly what a partition is?
Sorry to be such a lengthy query, advice would be very
much appreciated on the above. Thanks!
 
Sharon said:
These directions are going to remove everything on the volume that was
holding XP: Windows, data, updates, other programs.





No need to uninstall them if they are installed on the same partition as
Windows.

If on a different partition and the same version as what you have installed
media folder, it will be possible to reinstall them into the same folders.
If the programs have been updated since they were installed, then delete
their folders and then install them. This seems to go against the standard
reminder to use Add/Remove Programs; however your new Windows installation
will have no knowledge of the programs and deleting will work just fine.




You will need to reinstall updates.




Media Player will revert to the version that came with XP. You will need to
reinstall Media Player 9 to get that version back.




If it's a retail CD, yes. If it's an OEM recovery/repair CD, depends. Most
of these are pre-activated. You will be prompted to activate if it is
necessary.




The directions you outlined are for a clean install. They are not the
directions for a repair install.




Reinstall and update.




A hard drive is storage space. Partitioning is one of the steps necessary
to prepare the storage space for any kind of use. Formatting is the other
step.

The hard drive space can be partitioned as a whole or divided up into
smaller parts. Each partition receives a "drive letter" even if they are on
the same hard drive. Do not get fancy with partitions if using an OEM
recovery CD. Deviating from the manufacturer's directions can cause the
recovery software to fail.
Click to expand...

Sharon:

Excellent work.
 
Fiddling with the OS will not fix a disk error. To become 100% sure that
there are disk errors, you should look for file system errors in Event
Viewer/System (ntfs errors). If there are serious ntfs errors, this is
an indication of a bad sector in use.

If you haven't run chkdsk yet, I suggest you do. Open a command prompt
and enter "chkdsk X: /r" where X is the partition you want to test and
repair. If you only have the one partition on the one drive, then "C:"
isn't necessary. The /r option can often recover data from a bad sector
and mark the sector bad (for NTFS, not in the hardware). You will have
to reboot to run the test.

This is enough to recover from a stray bad sector, but if the disk is
failing, you will get those Event log errors again and programs may
crash mysteriously, so keep your eyes open. If errors accumulate, buy a
new disk pronto and use the transfer utility to copy your old disk
contents over to the new disk.
 
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