Re-establishing Windows and my Boot Drive

[Lee Beck]

I had a catastrophic failure of my Dell Dimension 510 computer. It came with
XP but I bought and installed Vista 32 and then lost the installation disc.
I've been operating in the Vista environment for a couple of years prior to
the computer failure, and have all my programs installed on the C:\ drive.

In an act of desperation I decided to use the Dell OS reinstall disc that
came with the computer to see if I could get the computer back operating
again. During the install process I was asked which drive on which to install
XP. The first choice offered by the install program was my E:\ drive,
probably because it had the most free space. The C:\ drive where my programs
and Vista OS reside is almost full. Also, I figured that if I’m really lucky
I may be able to boot into Vista if I learn a little and it the XP
installation got my computer back.

Well, after several hours I have indeed got my computer back. It now boots
from the E:\ drive into XP. I decided to open MS Excel by going to the
program exe and to create a shortcut onto my desktop, and found that MS
Office won’t allow that (error message). I suspect that many of my other
programs will balk also. I then decided to change my drive letters using the
Computer Management utility and it will not allow me to change the name of my
C:\ drive or my boot drive (E:\).

I’m at the point now where I’m just contented to have my computer back, and
I’ll forget about getting Vista back. I probably have more than 50 programs
on my old C:\ drive and it would be great not to have to reinstall them, but
I do recall during the OS install that my E:\ drive was reformatted. So my
questions are:

1. Is there any way short of purchasing additional OS software to get my C:\
drive back as my boot drive (with XP)?
2. Is there some way to change my drive letters so that my programs know
where their home is and boot from a different drive?

I am just about to the point reformatting my old E:\ drive where XP
currently resides and re-doing the install process by allowing the Dell XP
install disc to reformat the old C:\ drive and install XP there. This will
of course delete all of my programs. I just thought I’d post my dilemma here
in case one of you gurus has some advice. I already have moved my data files
to an external HDD so at least I’ll be able to save those.

Thanks for any help that you can provide.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I had a catastrophic failure of my Dell Dimension 510 computer. It
came with XP but I bought and installed Vista 32 and then lost the
installation disc. I've been operating in the Vista environment for
a couple of years prior to the computer failure, and have all my
programs installed on the C:\ drive.

In an act of desperation I decided to use the Dell OS reinstall
disc that came with the computer to see if I could get the computer
back operating again. During the install process I was asked which
drive on which to install XP. The first choice offered by the
install program was my E:\ drive, probably because it had the most
free space. The C:\ drive where my programs and Vista OS reside is
almost full. Also, I figured that if I'm really lucky I may be
able to boot into Vista if I learn a little and it the XP
installation got my computer back.

Well, after several hours I have indeed got my computer back. It
now boots from the E:\ drive into XP. I decided to open MS Excel
by going to the program exe and to create a shortcut onto my
desktop, and found that MS Office won't allow that (error message).
I suspect that many of my other programs will balk also. I then
decided to change my drive letters using the Computer Management
utility and it will not allow me to change the name of my C:\ drive
or my boot drive (E:\).

I'm at the point now where I'm just contented to have my computer
back, and I'll forget about getting Vista back. I probably have
more than 50 programs on my old C:\ drive and it would be great not
to have to reinstall them, but I do recall during the OS install
that my E:\ drive was reformatted. So my questions are:

1. Is there any way short of purchasing additional OS software to
get my C:\ drive back as my boot drive (with XP)?
2. Is there some way to change my drive letters so that my programs
know where their home is and boot from a different drive?

I am just about to the point reformatting my old E:\ drive where XP
currently resides and re-doing the install process by allowing the
Dell XP install disc to reformat the old C:\ drive and install XP
there. This will of course delete all of my programs. I just
thought I'd post my dilemma here in case one of you gurus has some
advice. I already have moved my data files to an external HDD so
at least I'll be able to save those.

Thanks for any help that you can provide.

1. Format completely (using Windows XP) and you can get C back as your boot
drive.
2. They are not installed in Windows XP at all. They may reside on the same
computer, but the registry entries, shared DLLs, etc are not there for XP -
you are out of luck.

You need to get your actual important stuff off (stuff you made -
favorites/bookmarks, documents, emails, pictures, etc. Be sure you have all
your product keys/installation media/serial numbers too) and do a proper
format.

 

[DL]

To install winxp on C (the old Vista drive) requires a clean install,
nothing else you can do other than locate your Vista CD or obtain a
replacement from MS if you can provide proof of purchase

 

[Lee Beck]

Thanks. That was my assumption but based on only a moderate level of
expertise. Knowing that there is no way to reasonably revert to XP and
recover my programs makes it a little easier mentally to format the drive
with all my programs.

I'll reformat C and E and install XP on C:\. Then I'll begin reinstalling
my programs.

Thanks for confirming my assumptions. My biggest fear was formatting C and
then learning that with a simple command or a couple of routines I could have
salvaged Vista and/or my programs.

BTW - I probably could prove that I purchased Vista and convince MSFT to
give me a product key, but I never found it to be substantially better than
XP for my use, so I'll just revert to XP.