I know theres heaps of partition and format tools out there to help you do certain things, but what i was wondering is instead of formatting the old fashioned way, and losing everything, is there a way i can format and not lose anything, so i dont have to do a million re installs? my hard drive is partitioned NTFS. and i have my C: where all my windows files are stored seperate to all my other drives.
I have recently added a 160Gb Maxtor 6 P160PO drive in an external hi-speed USB housing connected via a 4 port USB-2 card. I have tried copying large amounts of data (13-20Gb) but after a few minutes, I get "The drive is not ready" and it disappears from My Computer. If I disconnect it and re-connect it, it will reappear. The same happended with a 20Gb drive I swapped in, so it seems that it's not the drive. I have tried a different port to no avail.
I have 69.1 memory free from 74.5 and i noticed no matter how much i delete i cant get up into the 70s.For example this month i have deleted a ton of music files that came up to about 400mb,Then a few programs that were around 50mb each and still nothing .If anything it seems i am going down in memory instead of gaining from deleting these programs.
I am using XP Home SP2. Everytime I power on I lose 1gb of hard drive space. For example I have a 60gb harddrive on my laptop and am actually using about 20gb, however, if I power off and reboot and then go to Windows Explorer and go to C drive and check properties it will list my C drive at 21gb in use. f I reboot again and go to Windows Explorer and check C Drive and check properties it will say 22gb in use. I am now at the point that it says I am using 42gb of hard drice (C drive) even tho I am only using 20gb in actuality.
I want to format my hard drive ( been two years ) ! It is now running XP Pro, which I do not have the discs, and I want to switch back to XP Home, which I have one disc that came with the computer !I've tried booting up with the disk, so that I can format my hard drive, but nothing happens!
Instead of re-formatting and losing tons of items I haven't backed up I recently performed a system recovery (The F10 command that doesn't destroy your data). Now I have a clean windows setup and can see that the C drive is still more than half full but I have no clue how to get to my data.
I'm formatting my hard drive and re-installing XP, and I'm wondering if I can delete the system partition without any adverse effects to the system. When I try to delete it from the XP Setup disk, it warns me not to do it, but I'm trying to create a larger partition for the system. Can I delete the system partition and create a new one.
I got a new system assembled a month back and after 15 days the stop error began to happen (this was after my bro tried to transfer files from his iPod & it didn't happen). I looked up a lot of forums but didn't find this one and couldn't figure out what the problem might be. Restored system, disabled services, but nothing worked. Finally I got the C: drive formatted and Win XP SP2 reinstalled. Didn't install unnecessary/extra software this time. But I found this site a day before getting it formatted, so saved the last 5 minidump files. And the day after the reinstallation, it has started happening again. The first time it was the bcmndis.sys file -- Airtel Beetel 220bx modem -- connected with the USB; couldn't find another driver for it online.
This is my DAD's personal computer now, we are trying to format his hard drive i get to the point where it asks me whether i want to proceed, i put yes and hit enter, it then doesn't start formatting, it just say C:WINDOWS?
Fitted an extra HDD to my machine. Detected in bios but XP will not find it. Drive is unformatted (new), how do you format in windows XP. It was easy in 98SE, just go to dos, fdisk then format. How do you do this in XP?
I have been trying to format my hard drives. I tried using Device Manager, it let me format my E drive, but not the C drive, and then I tried by booting with the XP CD. Somehow I managed to install Windows on my E drive, and my C drive is still as it was. I have been following the instructions on how to format and install to the letter, but it's not happening for me. All of the screens match what the instructions say, but the result is nothing.I have searched this forum for HD/XP advice, and have done as suggested, no luck.How do I format my C drive, and start again?
I am cloning my existing hard drive in my laptop (sata) to an external hard drive (pata) in preparation for installing a new larger hard drive (sata)in the laptop. Can I, or how do I transfer the cloned data from the external (pata) to the new internal hard drive (sata)? Thanks in advance and I apoligize if this is a rudimentary question as this is my first time attempting something like this.
This forum has been incredibly helpful, and now I must ask another "ignorant" question to maintain my computer loving insanity. I recently acquired a used laptop running XP Home. I use Pro for work, so I thought it wise to install Pro over the top of the the former owners' OS and thereby effectively delete his old files etc. Well, what I found was that Windows simply imported the old OS info right into the new install, leaving folders, files and programs I didn't want on the hard drive. So my question for you guys and gals is this. How do I destroy everything on my hard drive, then make the laptop (without floppy drive available), accept the reloading of my XP Pro CD? It is a full OEM version by the way. If I can format the HD, and have BIOS boot from CD-ROM, will I have a "fresh" CD-only install at that point, or will there still be little goblins of information running around in my system
I have Windows XP X64, and I absolutely hate it. I want to downgrade to x86 (32-bit) so that I can run my stuff properly. Is there any way I can uninstall Windows XP X64 without losing my data, so that I can install XP x86 without any issues?
I had this idea, see if anybody has an opinion about this. My wife has an old XP computer I want to buy her a new one but she doesn't like the vista and she wants to keep the old xp operating system. What I want to do is take the old hard drive and put it in the new computer as the master and take the new hard drive and put it in as the slave erasing the vista off it. Then using the master slave way can I transfer the xp operating system and all her files and data from the old hard drive to the new one.
For some reason my main hard drive on my computer is constantly losing space. I added another hard drive earlier in the year, and have moved alot of programs to that drive using "Application Mover". Not sure if it's a reputable program, but I thought it was doing everything correctly.
I'm not sure what to do, or what is wrong. I've scanned with Norton, Spy Sweeper, AdAware, and Spybot and nothing unusual has shown up.
I got my PC from someone with Windows XP already installed, now there is a pop up which says that my copy of Windows is not genuine. I am a student and have gotten a Windows XP Professional with SP2 (Single User) ISO Image which allows me install a copy on my PC. I would like to reinstall with this new product without losing all my data and software
I am losing only picture and video files my computer. I save a file off the internet it usually lasts a few days on my hard drive and then disappears. I have used windows 98 and currently use 2000 and have the same problem. I have tried an external hard drive and saved the file and then disconnected the USB cable and the same thing happens next time i connect it. I have formatted hard drive a couple of times and problem reoccurred both times.
The problem I'm having has changed over the past week, and every time I thought I was getting closer to being fixed, it got worse. Mcafee anti-virus did an auto-update, and right after that, windows lost all of it's file associations. I'm sure I can give more information upon request, and I look forward to working this out and maybe learning something.
My hard drive just changed to fat32 for some reason and all the data is gone? Does anyone know what could be wrong, can I get my data back? When I start it up it goes through a check, ive left the check running and its been going ages, im not sure what its doing. Says something about lost clusters and truncated?
I got a 2nd hand lap top from my boss yesterday. Took it home last night and formatted the hard drive, then installed Centos and Linux over it. Got to work this morning to discover that my boss hadn't copied all his files over! I need to recover all his Outlook files.
My Sony Vaio had a file missing hal.dll file. A computer guy tried to use a boot disc to get the file and cant. Says my hard drives have crashed. And he cant do anythng because its a raid system and 2 hard drives.suggested i call someone to remove the data. its not backed up!!!
I am new to this site and I come here today to ask a question, perhaps someone here will be able to offer a bit of advice.I have a toshiba laptop, running xp pro sp2, 80GB hard drive.Hard drive inoperable due to bad sectors. My hard drive was partitioned into several sections with the C: section containing the os and the D: section containing my data. I could not boot my system so I tried reinstalling os on C: section again, it required a format. I formatted the C: section and then attempted to reinstall os, no luck!Using a third party diagnostic CD I see that my data on the D: partition is still available and intact. The diagnostic disk creates a makeshift os which allows for very limited manipulation of information on hard drive. Since I can not install os onto bad hard drive section C how can I transfer data from the section D: partition to either a new hard drive or to a storage medium?
My old hdd was used to run Windows XP Pro, where my profile was password protect and set for private. Since replacing that crashed pc with a new 1 that runs Windows Media Center I have been able to recover all except the data listed under my account's My Documents. When I scroll over it it says folder empty. When I click on it it says access denied (something like that). How can I retrieve this data. I tried some freeware I found online, but all it did was locate previously deleted files to recover. I want to recover stuff not previously deleted.
The motherboard in my old HP computer died and I have got 40 GB worth of data on the hard drive that is still working.I got a new XP computer and added the old hard drive as a slave, to get the data out, but apparently the old XP program is locking me out. How do I get around this block, so that I can get onto the old data, to save it, and get it ready to be reformatted, for use in another computer?
I have my windows XP Partition on the C Drive. I am trying to extract all the info from my D Drive and put it onto an External Hard drive. For some reason it is just not letting me transfer the files. I have tried to send and copy them over with no luck. I have tried using Acronis T.Image, but doesn't work (tells me that there is bad sectors and can't transfer). Tried using bootable disks (UBCD 4 Win, Drive XML, Norton partition manager 9.0 etc. As soon as I start extracting files it gives me and error message and asks if I want to ignore, retry etc. What would you suggest. I was going to run a disk check on this D drive, but I am afraid of it wiping out some of my files. Is there another bootable disk that I should use for extracting my files.
I would like to transfer the data files off a CD onto my hard drive, then set the program that needs the data files on the CD to read from the files on the hard drive rather than the CD. My CD drive is getting a bit old, but I am unable at the present time to upgrade it.
what is procedure and commands to wipe all data from harddrive? the currently installed os is windows 2000. its so badly infected with trojans( thanks kids!) that i am going to start anew and put better access limits on it.(take that guys). already have downloaded all data i want to keep and will be scanning it( before installing) with avast and other goodies i've downloaded.