How do I Transfer Data files from Old Accounts?

[Richard]

I have a 4 year old computer which came with Windows XP Home Edition.
Lately, it had become unstable (re-booting frequently for no reason) and very
slow (click Start, wait 2 seconds, click Shutdown, wait 4 seconds). So I copied
all of the data files, including a LOT of music files, to another computer on my
LAN. Then I re-installed Windows XP.

Judging from the still almost full hard drive, the old files are still on the
drive. In "C:\Documents and Settings\" I can see the folder for my old account.
But I cannot access this folder from my new account, even though at the Windows
login screen it says Administrator under my name.

On Unix systems (Linux, etc.) there is a super-user login which gives one
absolute control of the computer. Is there some kind of super-user login in
Windows XP so I can move those files from my old account to my new account?

 

[DL]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us

If you still have a user account showing from a previous imstallation then
either you reinstall/repair process was done incorrectly or if you meant to
clean install this wasnt done correctly, i'd suggest you start over.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a 4 year old computer which came with Windows XP Home Edition.
Lately, it had become unstable (re-booting frequently for no reason) and very
slow (click Start, wait 2 seconds, click Shutdown, wait 4 seconds). So I copied
all of the data files, including a LOT of music files, to another computer on my
LAN. Then I re-installed Windows XP.

Judging from the still almost full hard drive, the old files are still on the
drive. In "C:\Documents and Settings\" I can see the folder for my old account.
But I cannot access this folder from my new account, even though at the Windows
login screen it says Administrator under my name.

Exactly how did you "reinstall" Windows? It sounds like you did it
improperly and may have done a "repair installation" (a name which
confuses people, in my view; I think it should simply be called a
"repair) or, more likely, you installed a second copy in parallel, and
now have two installations.

By the way, I think reinstalling in situations like this is generally
poor practice, for a bunch of reasons. I'll mention just two:

1. You never found out what was wrong, and if the problems were caused
by something you did (which is often likely) you will likely repeat
the same behavior and quickly find yourself back in the situation you
started in.

2. Spontaneous rebooting is often a hardware problem, not a Windows
one. If that's the case for you, reinstalling does nothing to solve
the problem.

 

[Richard]

Exactly how did you "reinstall" Windows? It sounds like you did it
improperly and may have done a "repair installation" (a name which
confuses people, in my view; I think it should simply be called a
"repair) or, more likely, you installed a second copy in parallel, and
now have two installations.

I wanted to do a complete factory reinstall, either via a reload disk or a
hidden partition. Unfortunately, Dell had not implemented that feature by the
time the computer was manufactured. All we got was a bunch of program CDROMs.
Faced with a program-by-program reinstall, I decided to start with Windows.

I put the Win XP install disk into the CDROM drive, and booted off the CDROM
drive. I saw an option for repair, and chose that. Part way through that
process, it asked for a driver file (I can't remember which), which I was able
to find on another CDROM. Then it asked for another driver file. At this
point, I got exasperated, shut down the computer using the on/off switch, booted
off the CDROM again, and told it to do a fresh install of Windows.

How would I tell if I had 2 installations in parallel?

Before I started this process, the computer only had about 2 GB free space on
the hard disk (LOTS of music files). It still has about 2 GB left, so I don't
see how I could have fitted a parallel Windows installation onto the disk.

By the way, I think reinstalling in situations like this is generally
poor practice, for a bunch of reasons. I'll mention just two:

1. You never found out what was wrong, and if the problems were caused
by something you did (which is often likely) you will likely repeat
the same behavior and quickly find yourself back in the situation you
started in.

2. Spontaneous rebooting is often a hardware problem, not a Windows
one. If that's the case for you, reinstalling does nothing to solve
the problem.

My thought was: Freshly install the software, and see if the computer runs OK.
If not, try to find the hardware problem.

We did have one anomaly last night. The wife was burning a music CDROM. She
was just sitting there watching the burning progress, when the computer changed
to the Switch User screen. She logged in as herself again, and the CDROM
burning process was still running and finished normally.

Previously, during spontaneous re-boots, Dell's splash screen was displayed as
the computer did a Power On Self Test, and all work was lost.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I wanted to do a complete factory reinstall, either via a reload disk or a
hidden partition. Unfortunately, Dell had not implemented that feature by the
time the computer was manufactured. All we got was a bunch of program CDROMs.
Faced with a program-by-program reinstall, I decided to start with Windows.

I put the Win XP install disk into the CDROM drive, and booted off the CDROM
drive.

Good.


I saw an option for repair, and chose that.

That's what you did that was wrong. You wanted a clean reinstallation;
you got a repair "installation."

You can still do a clean reinstallation, if that's what you want. Just
boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary
to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation
(delete the existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then
create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp.htm

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

Part way through that
process, it asked for a driver file (I can't remember which), which I was able
to find on another CDROM. Then it asked for another driver file. At this
point, I got exasperated, shut down the computer using the on/off switch, booted
off the CDROM again, and told it to do a fresh install of Windows.

Since you ended up with the same 2GB free that you started with,
undoubtedly you didn't properly tell it to do the clean
reinstallation. As I said, redo it, and follow the instructions above.

How would I tell if I had 2 installations in parallel?

Before I started this process, the computer only had about 2 GB free space on
the hard disk (LOTS of music files). It still has about 2 GB left, so I don't
see how I could have fitted a parallel Windows installation onto the disk.

No, based on what you say here, I agree, and withdraw that suggestion.

My thought was: Freshly install the software, and see if the computer runs OK.
If not, try to find the hardware problem.

Your choice, of course, but that's not the approach I would take or
recommend.

 

[Richard]

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

I examined the screen shots on this page, and compared them to my attempt at a
clean install (after my aborted attempt at repair).

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro3setup.jpg
I got this screen. It said there was a very small FAT16 partition (probably for
the diagnostics in the BIOS set-up area), a large (78 GB or so) NTFS partition,
and a very small unpartitioned space. The hard drive has an 80 GB capacity.

I selected the large partition.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro4setup.jpg
I did not see an option of formatting the partition. If I had, I would have
used it.

Note, the above statements are from my memory. I have not yet tried
re-installing XP again using your web page as a guide. My wife uses the
computer a lot. Now she can use it for email and web browsing, and because we
copied all of her data files over our LAN to my computer, she can access the
files from there. She was miffed that it took so long to reinstall XP and then
update with SP2. So before I try again, I want to be sure that the XP disk I
have is capable of a clean reinstallation.

The label on the operating system CD we got with the computer from Dell says:
OPERATING SYSTEM
ALREADY INSTALLED ON YOUR SYSTEM
Reinstallation CD
Microsoft(r) Windows(r) XP Home Edition
Including Service Pack 1a

This software is already installed on your computer.
Only use this CD to reinstall the software.

Is this reinstallation CD capable of making a clean re-install?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I examined the screen shots on this page, and compared them to my attempt at a
clean install (after my aborted attempt at repair).

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro3setup.jpg
I got this screen. It said there was a very small FAT16 partition (probably for
the diagnostics in the BIOS set-up area), a large (78 GB or so) NTFS partition,
and a very small unpartitioned space. The hard drive has an 80 GB capacity.

I selected the large partition.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro4setup.jpg
I did not see an option of formatting the partition. If I had, I would have
used it.

Note, the above statements are from my memory. I have not yet tried
re-installing XP again using your web page as a guide. My wife uses the
computer a lot. Now she can use it for email and web browsing, and because we
copied all of her data files over our LAN to my computer, she can access the
files from there. She was miffed that it took so long to reinstall XP and then
update with SP2. So before I try again, I want to be sure that the XP disk I
have is capable of a clean reinstallation.

The label on the operating system CD we got with the computer from Dell says:
OPERATING SYSTEM
ALREADY INSTALLED ON YOUR SYSTEM
Reinstallation CD
Microsoft(r) Windows(r) XP Home Edition
Including Service Pack 1a

This software is already installed on your computer.
Only use this CD to reinstall the software.

Is this reinstallation CD capable of making a clean re-install?

If it's an installation CD, yes it is. All installation CDs can do
clean installations.