REINSTALLING WINDOWS WITHOUT (MUCH) DATA LOSS Whew. It has been an interesting weekend, to say the least, as I’ve unexpectedly had to reinstall Windows 98se on my home computer. Please indulge me as I recount what (I think) happened to my operating system, tell you how I reinstalled it, and about a few nifty programs that helped in the process.
Sadly, it appeared the only solution, short of playing Russian Roulette with the registry, was to hunker down and reformat the hard drive (losing everything) or try to reinstall just Windows. I decided to remove Windows and reinstall it. It reinstalled wonderfully on the 2nd try. Don’t ask what happened on the first try. It was ugly … Everyone does it differently so other folks might know of a better way. But, here’s what I did: First, I went to PC World’s website to see if they had a “How To” article about it. Sure enough, Lincoln Spector had written a great article with step by step directions. Here’s the link to his full article: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,111652,00.asp Second, I located my Windows 98se CD and those that came with my hardware. I started backing stuff up just to be on the safe side. I copied my Internet Explorer Favorites folder to a floppy. You can find your IE Fav’s at C:Windows>Favorites. Next, I backed up my drivers using a free program called WinDriversBackup available from www.softpile.com among other places. After that, I tackled Outlook Express. Using Outlook Express Freebie Backup, I backed up my Address Book, settings, and Store Folders. Store Folders are where all of your email is stored. OEFB is written by Majik, a Microsoft MVP. It’s free and available from his website at: http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx. Following Mr. Spector’s advice, I copied the selected Windows folders that he lists in his article. Be sure to read it and print it out should you decide to do this too. Next, I created a startup disk. I put in a blank floppy, selected Start > Settings > Control Panel >Add/Remove Programs > Startup Disk > Create Disk and followed the prompts. With the startup disk in the floppy drive, I restarted the computer. It booted off the floppy and at the Startup Menu, I selected “Start Computer with CD-Rom support.” Then the basic drivers loaded in. Now, it was time to delete the Windows folders by typing the command: c:\command\deltree /y c:\windows and pressing Enter. The computer started deleting its Windows folder and that took about 20 minutes. Eventually, I was back at the A: prompt and typed j:setup, where j was my CD drive letter (it was one letter past where it normally would show). After that was done, I was back in Windows and reinstalled my graphics card driver. One by one, Plug and Play detected my hardware and I reinstalled the backed up drivers as called for. Mr. Spector suggests in the backup phase to create a folder called “oldstuff” and to back up certain folders by putting them there. That was all well and good, but then, eventually he recommends using xcopy to restore them all. That’s where I ran into problems the first time. Lots of references to drivers were put into the registry and that confused my computer. I wound up starting all over, but the second time, I didn’t bring all of the oldstuff back when suggested but used those backed up folders as sources for Windows to look for drivers as each was called for. Anyway, slowly but surely, the hardware got reinstalled, and some of the software too. Although Program Files still listed all of the old programs, they were no longer installed. But, once reinstalled to their original place, they had access to their data files which made it nice. Plus, I went back to Windows Update and downloaded and installed all of the Critical Updates again. I reinstalled my Internet Explorer Favorites by merely using Windows Explorer to drag them from the backed up location back to Windows. It asked if I wanted to rewrite the Favorites file that was there (which only had the basic stuff that comes with IE) and I said “Yes.” In Outlook Express, restoring the Store Folders with all of my email was trickier. In OE6, before downloading any recent mail, I changed the location of the Store Folder (go to Tools>Options>Maintenance) to a place outside of Windows, in my case, another drive. I called the dummy Folder, “OEJerry.” Then, using Windows Explorer, I went to that location and replaced the new OEJerry store folder with a copy of my backed up store folder and renamed it to OEJerry. If you merely change the location of the Store Folder to the location where the backup is, then OE will replace your backed up one with the new one that has essentially nothing in it! So, don’t do that for heaven’s sake. Lastly in OE, Import your backed up Address Book (File>Import). It’s a file with a WAB extension. Over the course of this next week, I’ll reinstall the rest of my software. As tedious as this has been, it sure beats reformatting the entire drive and losing everything. I’m glad that part is over. Let’s hope it goes even smoother-should you have to do it too. See you next month.
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Something
went wrong with Norton Anti-Virus (NAV). I’m not sure what
happened but I started getting strange error messages about it.
Then I uninstalled/reinstalled NAV but the reinstall wouldn’t
take. So, I raced out to Best Buy and bought the latest version
of NAV 2004. Its readme warned not to use it with Norton Internet
Security (NIS) 2002. Well, I was running NIS 2003 so I thought everything
was cool. Wrong. Installing the 2004 NAV resulted in all kinds of
installation problems. I uninstalled NIS but the damage was done.
I think the registry got all messed up. What a nightmare.