Andy said:
Won't I lose everything if I do a re-install ?
Andy
A Repair Install, doesn't remove everything. It "freshens up" the
OS. The problem with that, is all sorts of stuff is preserved,
perhaps even malware (if that is what it is).
(A classic reference, but lacking pictures you might find on another site.)
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
Note that a repair install no longer works really well,
because of issues of matching the Service Pack level,
or removing IE7 or IE8, before using the installer disc
which has IE6 on it. There are a few things to research before
attempting the repair install for best results. Apparently,
the IE mess can be resolved, by reinstalling the matching
version of IE, after the install step is finished. But
I don't see that as being a guarantee, merely an observation
that someone noticed that seemed to clean things up enough
to run.
(And, do a backup first... When working on someone else's PC,
"do no harm". At least know how to restore from backup, so
they're no worse off.)
*******
A clean install, basically starts over again.
Tools like this (FAST), allow bringing information from an old
computer to a new computer.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293118
But, the problem with that is, your old computer is no longer
sane, so you can't really expect FAST to run.
People here, in 2005, worked on a BartPE plugin for FAST.
If it was anything like the amount of effort to track down
like the NTBackup plugin was, good luck on that. Building your
BartPE, be prepared to set aside a couple days to get the
recipe down. I built about six different images, before I
had something that was fit to waste a CD on. I tested the
other versions in a virtual machine, until it looked like
I was getting somewhere (had enough plugins to make it
usable). It wasn't a problem getting the basic CD prepared,
just including plugins or figuring out how the plugin process
worked that was a time waster. At the time, I needed to
make a sample NTBackup file, to feed into a tool that promised
to convert it to something useful. And decided it would be
fun to do from BartPE.
http://www.911cd.net/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t14780.html
There are plenty of possibilities, but... back up first.
*******
Some backup tools, rely on the C: being sane, in order to
run the tool. My computer is triple boot on independent
disks, so I don't lack for a means to run the odd thing
(such as arrange a backup). That's going to be a pain to
do on a laptop. As a laptop is generally lacking in the
"spare disk" department. If stuck, I can do backups from a
Linux LiveCD, but even mentioning that here, brings howls of
derision. (Like, "you couldn't do that with Windows ?").
I choose to view all OSes as tools to be used. If my
hammer is damaged, I reach for a crowbar, even if it
looks funny.
Now, luckily, these days you can easily unscrew the
laptop hard drive, pull the metal tray with drive out,
remove drive from tray, and cable it up and plug into
an internal port on your desktop system. If you need to
do a backup, that's one way to get it done. For IDE
drives, you'll need a 44 pin to 40 pin IDE adapter.
For SATA drives, you need nothing, as 2.5" SATA is
the same as 3.5" SATA, and the SATA power and data
cable in your desktop will work fine with it. Only
1.8" SSDs use the pesky 1.8" microSATA connector.
Sorry I couldn't help more.
Paul
Safety first!