Reinstall of Windows XP Home

[Gail]

I had Windows XP Professional installed on my pc. Basically, it crashed and
do not have any way to reinstall it. I have purchased a new program XP Home.
I have limited knowledge and have never done this before. I understand that
if I do a clean install I will lose everything. Does that apply to any
hardware that's currently installed ? I'm not able to backup anything
.......what other ways are there to save programs and what programs need to
be saved ? Is this something I should attempt to do myself ?
Hoping someone can help me !

 

[Malke]

I had Windows XP Professional installed on my pc. Basically, it crashed and
do not have any way to reinstall it. I have purchased a new program XP Home.
I have limited knowledge and have never done this before. I understand that
if I do a clean install I will lose everything. Does that apply to any
hardware that's currently installed ? I'm not able to backup anything
......what other ways are there to save programs and what programs need to
be saved ? Is this something I should attempt to do myself ?
Hoping someone can help me !

You must do a clean install to go from XP Pro to XP Home. Yes,
everything will be gone. You need to back up all your data, including
any program installer executables you wish to save. You can't back up
the programs themselves; they will need to be reinstalled on the new
system from whatever installation media you have (CD, installable
executable).

It is completely possible to retrieve your data without being able to
boot into Windows, but only you know if you have the equipment and skill
to do this. If you don't, have a computer professional do the job for
you. This will not be your local version of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad.
Get recommendations from family, friends, colleagues.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Backing_Up

A. Data retrieval:

1. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install
of XP/Vista. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may
need a drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card,
etc. A usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use
the working Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's
hard drive and then burn the data to cd or dvd.

2. Often XP/Vista will not boot with a slaved drive that has a damaged
file system. In that case, boot the target computer with either a Bart's
PE or a Linux live cd such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way.
Here is general information on using Knoppix for this:

You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. If you want to burn CD/DVDs, use the K3b program.

http://www.knoppix.net
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ - Bart's PE Builder

B. Installation of the new operating system:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand


Malke

 

[Gail]

Malke..... thanks for the fast response and info.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I had Windows XP Professional installed on my pc. Basically, it crashed and
do not have any way to reinstall it.

Why not? OEM vendors are required by their agreement with Microsoft to
give you a means of reinstalling, should it be necessary. They can do
this in one of three ways:

1. An OEM copy of Windows
2. A restore CD
3. A hidden partition on your drive, with restore information.

If you don't have 1 or 2, you should have 3, but you should contact
your vendor to find out.

Personally, I find both 2 and 3 unacceptable (especially 3; a hard
drive crash can leave you with nothing), and would never choose to buy
a computer that came with an operating system unless I got a complete
generic installation CD for that operating system.

And how do you know it has to be reinstalled?

I have purchased a new program XP Home.
I have limited knowledge and have never done this before. I understand that
if I do a clean install I will lose everything.

That's correct. And a clean installation is the *only* way to go from
Professional to Home.

Does that apply to any
hardware that's currently installed ?

Hardware? No, certainly not. Installing an operating system can't
destroy hardware.

It applies to *everything* that's on your hard drive--your documents,
pictures, music, programs, and anything else that's there.

I'm not able to backup anything

Why not? If have anything on your drive that's important to you, you
should *always* have backups of it. Waiting until this situation
happens is like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.

......what other ways are there to save programs

None. Sorry to say you're out of luck. Even if you had a backup
(unless it was an image of the entire drive), when you reinstall
Windows, you always have to also reinstall all your programs from
their original media.

and what programs need to
be saved ? Is this something I should attempt to do myself ?
Hoping someone can help me !

Tell us more about two things:

1. Exactly what do you have on the drive that's important to you and
that you don't want to lose?

2. Exactly what happened that makes you think you have to reinstall
Windows? Depending on what it was, you may at least be able to save
your data files.

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

it is unfortunate that
you encountered a
crash.

barring an utter failure of the
physical disk, crashes are
no longer the end of
the world because
many improvements
have been incorporated
into windows and the
file system.

for example, you could have
borrowed a windows cd, or
simply use the one you bought
to into the recovery console.

there is a good reason why
the term above called "recovery"
is used.

then once you have access
to the file system there are
commands that can likely
make your disk and operating
system functional again.

--

<)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

..

 

[Plato]

I had Windows XP Professional installed on my pc. Basically, it crashed and
do not have any way to reinstall it. I have purchased a new program XP Home.
I have limited knowledge and have never done this before. I understand that
if I do a clean install I will lose everything. Does that apply to any
hardware that's currently installed ? I'm not able to backup anything
......what other ways are there to save programs and what programs need to
be saved ? Is this something I should attempt to do myself ?

You learned the hard way, sorry to say. You should have had all your
most important data already saved to at least 2 forms of media.