reinstalling OS vs reformatting hard drive
- Thread starter gwak
- Start date
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SFR
Truth fears no questions
There are some steps to try BEFORE reinstalling the OS or formatting the drive......
Reformatting your drive will erase everything on your drive (well not 100% , but for a normal user.... it gets rid of everything on your drive).
After formatting a drive u must reinstall everything.. the OS and all of your drivers and applications.
Reinstalling an operating system instead of reformatting is a good idea if you have somthing wrong with the operating system itself.. but before that step there are are a few things you can try...
For example XP has the system restore (symantec's GOBACK works better) there is also the Recovery Console and the Automated system Recovery.... THESE three things should be attempted BEFORE reinstalling an operating system... and if all else fails format your drive... (try searching on the internet for information on "fdisk")
Reformatting your drive will erase everything on your drive (well not 100% , but for a normal user.... it gets rid of everything on your drive).
After formatting a drive u must reinstall everything.. the OS and all of your drivers and applications.
Reinstalling an operating system instead of reformatting is a good idea if you have somthing wrong with the operating system itself.. but before that step there are are a few things you can try...
For example XP has the system restore (symantec's GOBACK works better) there is also the Recovery Console and the Automated system Recovery.... THESE three things should be attempted BEFORE reinstalling an operating system... and if all else fails format your drive... (try searching on the internet for information on "fdisk")
Blue
<b>VIP Member</b>
Thanks SFR, i'm not trying to be a smart ass here but I actualy already know how to instal windows... I guess what i was shooting for is How to do it without reformatting so if you could be a little more specific because I was always under the impression that you could not reinstal over the old OS so therefore you'd need to reformat..
SFR
Truth fears no questions
reformatting a drive is a last resort.
Reinstalling an OS is the second to last resort.
When you reinstall XP for example the FDISK screen comes up.
If you have unpartitioned space over 2GB you can install XP right on there and theres your fresh new OS.
or by deleting the partition that has XP on it.. everything will be unpartition space and you can install XP fresh (of course all of the data will not be able to be retrieved)
all that mumbo jumbo I just wrote brings be back to WHY DO YOU NEED TO REINSTALL THE OS?
If there is a problem with THE OS ITSELF... the OS CAN REPAIR itself...
if its another problem that can not be fixed though the varous troubleshooting options.....
..there IS NO REASON TO REINSTALL THE OS by itself... you need to format your drive so you can erase whatever your troubleshooting efforts could not fix and reinstall all of the drivers and apps..along with your OS
Reinstalling an OS is the second to last resort.
When you reinstall XP for example the FDISK screen comes up.
If you have unpartitioned space over 2GB you can install XP right on there and theres your fresh new OS.
or by deleting the partition that has XP on it.. everything will be unpartition space and you can install XP fresh (of course all of the data will not be able to be retrieved)
all that mumbo jumbo I just wrote brings be back to WHY DO YOU NEED TO REINSTALL THE OS?
If there is a problem with THE OS ITSELF... the OS CAN REPAIR itself...
if its another problem that can not be fixed though the varous troubleshooting options.....
..there IS NO REASON TO REINSTALL THE OS by itself... you need to format your drive so you can erase whatever your troubleshooting efforts could not fix and reinstall all of the drivers and apps..along with your OS