Hi. I need to reinstall vista today after a nasty virus messed things up.

I have three drives; C, D and E.

Windows is installed on C and all of my user files are stored on D and E. I don't really use C for anything other than Windows.

If i reinstall Vista, will this affect D and E drives? I.e. could there be a problem where it deletes all my files on D and E or am i ok to leave these connected while i reinstall vista on C without any problems regarding the files on my other drives. I've already asked this on another website's forum but i just want to make sure with a second opinion.

Please put my mind at ease. Thanks.

This post has been edited by hypnoticstate: Oct 7 2008, 05:09 AM

Hi,



That sucks ,
Maybe with some luck you can still salvage your Vista installation , can you describe what happened, and what works and what not?
Are you still able to get in Vista, or cant you boot at all?

Often these problems can be fixed, but it usually takes a little time and work, Although the easiest way would be a full reinstall.



That depends on the choices you make during the setup, if you just want to install Vista on the C: drive, you could simply format that drive without touching the other drives.

At some point during the installation, setup will ask you where you want to install Vista, Click on your C: drive and choose "Drive options (advanced)", and then choose "format".
After that you can just install Vista on your C: drive.

If you are still able to get into your current installation of Vista, and you have files and folders stored on your C: drive (such as your 'My Documents' folder) that you want to preserve, you should try to back those files up before running the setup.

Also, when you reinstall Vista, all settings and registry information is lost, so some programs that were installed on your D: and E: drives won't work anymore, and games often install save data in your Documents & Settings folder on your C: drive, which you will lose as well.

Here's a nice Vista installation guide: *Clean Install Windows Vista*

Good luck ,

Razenko

This post has been edited by Razenko: Oct 7 2008, 12:58 PM

As long as the "D" and "E" drives have only data written to them, formatting and reinstalling Vista should not harm any files on them. If you have programs installed on the drives, they will not work any longer if the "C" drive was formatted and vista reinstalled. This is because the association between the programs and the data has been deleted along with the OS.

You could disconnect the "D" and "E" drives when you are formatting the "C" drive if you really want the data to be safe. The problemthat could happen by doing this is you will have a "C" drive, then a "D" cdrom( DVD?) drive, then the "E" and "F" hard drives. While not really a problem, it will be like this if they are disconnected during the Vista install.

SRX660

You have to also remember, that since your computer is infected, your D, and E drives may be compromised, as well.
Are these partitions of the same HD, or separate hard drives?