Win OS reinstall vs. destructive "restore" to factory condition

[Guest]

About one year ago, I got messages that indicated that my XP SP2 OS was
corrupted, and it would not run. I purchased telephone support from
Microsoft, and the man tried to walk me through a reinstallation with a Win
XP installation CD. I wanted very much to preserve all my apps. I had been
backing up pretty regularly to an external USB hard drive, so my "data"
files were not a serious problem. For some reason that I cannot remember,
the attempted reinstallation which would have preserved my apps did not
work. The telephone guy seemed as if he were closely following a script.
When a destructive reinstallation couldn't be made to happen, he had me
reformat the boot hard drive, and the installation of Win XP Pro from the CD
proceeded. I had to download and install a large number of device drivers
from Dell, which was tedious. And of course had to find all my app
installation CDs and reinstall them. The whole experience was somewhat
distressful.

If a user has a Win XP Pro installation CD, what are the circumstances which
prevent a reinstallation of the OS in a way that preserves apps and device
drivers?

Last month a member of my family, living 500 miles from me, found that her
Win XP froze in booting, and she took the machine to a computer store. They
copied most, but not all, of her data files from her hard drive, then
reformatted the drive and installed Win XP. In what ways and in what
circumstances could the loss of her apps been avoided?

 

[Malke]

About one year ago, I got messages that indicated that my XP SP2 OS was
corrupted, and it would not run. I purchased telephone support from
Microsoft, and the man tried to walk me through a reinstallation with a
Win
XP installation CD. I wanted very much to preserve all my apps. I had
been backing up pretty regularly to an external USB hard drive, so my
"data"
files were not a serious problem. For some reason that I cannot remember,
the attempted reinstallation which would have preserved my apps did not
work. The telephone guy seemed as if he were closely following a script.
When a destructive reinstallation couldn't be made to happen, he had me
reformat the boot hard drive, and the installation of Win XP Pro from the
CD
proceeded. I had to download and install a large number of device drivers
from Dell, which was tedious. And of course had to find all my app
installation CDs and reinstall them. The whole experience was somewhat
distressful.

If a user has a Win XP Pro installation CD, what are the circumstances
which prevent a reinstallation of the OS in a way that preserves apps and
device drivers?

Last month a member of my family, living 500 miles from me, found that her
Win XP froze in booting, and she took the machine to a computer store.
They copied most, but not all, of her data files from her hard drive, then
reformatted the drive and installed Win XP. In what ways and in what
circumstances could the loss of her apps been avoided?

Purchase an external hard drive and an imaging program such as Acronis True
Image (my favorite). TI can do imaging, cloning, and incremental backups.
Use TI to make an image of the perfectly working computer with all your
applications installed, updates done, configured the way you like it, etc.
Store the image on the external hard drive. Then you will be able to
restore that image within a relatively few minutes if Windows gets messed
up or if your hard drive dies.

Other than that, there is no way to get applications back when you do a
clean install. They need to be reinstalled from the installation media
(CD/DVD, installer executable downloaded from the Internet).

Malke

 

[AJR]

"Destructive Restore" is a term used by OEMs (HP, Compaq, etc) to designate
a reinstallation of the OS and applications - all data and applications
created and/or installed after purchase of the computer are
"removed/deleted/destroyed" - hence the tern "destructive Restore".

Fornmatting a drive deletes everything on that drive and the OS installation
is referred to as a "Clean" install - and all data must be backed up/saved
to another HD or removeable media. Otherwise to preserve data and
applications the OS installation must be an "Upgrade".

Both options (clean or upgrade) (in adddition to repair options) are
available when running XP CD setup on a computer currently having the OS
installed.

 

[Daave]

About one year ago, I got messages that indicated that my XP SP2 OS
was corrupted, and it would not run. I purchased telephone support
from Microsoft, and the man tried to walk me through a reinstallation
with a Win XP installation CD. I wanted very much to preserve all my
apps. I had been backing up pretty regularly to an external USB hard
drive, so my "data" files were not a serious problem. For some reason
that I cannot remember, the attempted reinstallation which would have
preserved my apps did not work. The telephone guy seemed as if he
were closely following a script. When a destructive reinstallation
couldn't be made to happen, he had me reformat the boot hard drive,
and the installation of Win XP Pro from the CD proceeded.

I assume that last sentence is a typo and you meant to use the word
*non-destructive*.

I had to download and install a large number of device drivers from
Dell, which was tedious. And of course had to find all my app
installation CDs and reinstall them. The whole experience was
somewhat distressful.

If a user has a Win XP Pro installation CD, what are the circumstances
which prevent a reinstallation of the OS in a way that preserves apps
and device drivers?

They vary. Short circular answer: If too much damage was done to the
system to allow a Repair (aka Non-destructive) Install to take place,
then a Clean (aka Destructive) Install must be done. Attempt to do the
Repair Install. If unsuccessful, do a Clean Install. But in both
scenarios, you should still back up all your data.

Last month a member of my family, living 500 miles from me, found that
her Win XP froze in booting, and she took the machine to a computer
store. They copied most, but not all, of her data files from her hard
drive, then reformatted the drive and installed Win XP. In what ways
and in what circumstances could the loss of her apps been avoided?

So many things can cause a PC not to function properly. It could be too
much dust inside the PC, which would lead to over-heating. It could be
the result of a bad update. Often, it is the result of malware. And some
malware is relatively easy to remove, but other malware nearly
impossible. Without looking at your relative's PC, it's impossible to
tell. It's possible that the tech could have fixed the problem without
resorting to a clean install, but since we are not privy to what
happened, it's anybody's guess.

 

[Randem]

Since he was reading a script it seems that he had no dorect knowledge of
what he needed to do. Saying that he may not have understood what you
wanted. The only way to preserve app is to do a repair. This however does
not always work and then you are left with the destructive install.

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
Disk Read Error Press Ctl+Alt+Del to Restart
http://www.randem.com/discus/messages/9402/9406.html?1236319938

 

[Lil' Dave]

Not really. I would have to recite, verbatim, exactly the steps to take in
either form of installation. Even after performing such shortly prior. You
can't backtrack once you've made some selections in XP install setup. So,
there's no "I forgot to mention that..."

More likely, the tech support person was using a visual aid PC to see
exactly what the person on the other end should see per each step. That is,
a visual simulation rather than a script.