[shel2004]

Last Friday my computer started making this ringing noise when I started it up. Computer would turn on but the monitor remained black. The noise persisited so I asked my brother about it, and he said to put in the Windows XP systems operating disc. I did and the computer started up. Nothing installed so everythign is fine. the next day , unknown to me, my comcast service was experiencing difficulties so I could not log onto any sites. So I put the operating system disc and it began installing windows xp over top of my windows xp. I do not know why I did this, but now I am having problems with my computer. Everytime I go to close a browser window whether on the internet or one of programs, it will not immediately close and then I get an error report. My computer continuoly freezes. What do I need to do. Do I uninstall XP and will that leave my original xp okay? Or is there something else I need to do. I am a complete rookie here, as is obvious by my stupid mistake.

[Advertisements]

Installing Windows on top of an existing installation does not necessarily correct any problems that exist since many of the existing files are left untouched, and some of those may be part of the problem. What you should do is back up all your stuff in 'My Documents', your email data and your browser bookmarks, then boot from the XP setup CD, 'format' the partition containing Windows, then choose the same partition to install Windows on.
You'll then have a "clean" installation of Windows with no old files left behind. Of course, you'll have to re-install your applications that aren't included with Windows but performing a "clean" install is the only way you should do it.

[pip22]

Installing Windows on top of an existing installation does not necessarily correct any problems that exist since many of the existing files are left untouched, and some of those may be part of the problem. What you should do is back up all your stuff in 'My Documents', your email data and your browser bookmarks, then boot from the XP setup CD, 'format' the partition containing Windows, then choose the same partition to install Windows on.
You'll then have a "clean" installation of Windows with no old files left behind. Of course, you'll have to re-install your applications that aren't included with Windows but performing a "clean" install is the only way you should do it.