Will re-installing XP delete existing data on C drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ian
  • Start date Start date
I

Ian

Having a corrupt XP Home edition installation and being unable to run system
recovery, will all existing data on the rest of the C drive be lost if
Windows is re-installed?
 
This is the one question that has a lot of different answers. The first one
is yes once you format C drive you lose all data on the drive itself even
when you partion the drive a second time you could lose all files. The
second answer is not if you have a second drive/partion on your harddrive.
You could create a folder on the second harddrive/partion and store them
until you format C and then move them over. This then begs the question "are
these files infected? or corrupt? and will reinstalling them cause the same
error?"
The third question is "is this an error I can recover from by deleting the
file and reinstalling just the file from my XP disks?"
The 4th and possibly last question is " the machine you have is a clone,
main manufacturer(HP, E MACHINE ect...), off brand (Soyo, Pshony) and is
your XP operating system on 2 disks along with all your drivers and extra
software? If so once you drop the first disk in it will ask you to confirm
formatting your harddrive so getting at the files could be a problem.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but someone had to....
Fuzzy1
 
lost the attribute on this, my apologies to it's author:

XP REPAIR
.............................................................................
Boot from the CD or you can insert the CD while at the windows desktop but
when the setup screen appears, exit setup and reboot. If your system is set
to be able to boot from the CD, it should detect the disk and give a brief
message, during the boot up, if you wish to boot from the CD press any key.

Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.

Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console.

The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.
 
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