[rshaffer61]

By default the main drive should already be mounted.
You need to mount the external.
Is the main drive already showing as mounted?

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You mean with the green and yellow icons rather than the red one? No.

[Canary]

You mean with the green and yellow icons rather than the red one? No.

[rshaffer61]

Ok you have to mount the main and then also mount the external.
Then you should be able to do the backup as I instructed earlier.

[Canary]

Thanks for this. I'm getting there!

Just a couple of questions, though:

1)It seems I can highlight everything in the main drive and drag and drop it on to the external drive. But unlike what you said in post 29, I'm not being asked to verify any of the copying across. Should I be worried by this?

2)Should I be copying across absolutely everything that is on my C drive? The reason I ask is that if there is a problem with my C drive (which there presumably is, which is why we're doing ths process in the first place), aren't I just backing up the error?

3) Depending on the answer to the previous question, I see there are a couple of folders already on my new external hard drive - including System Volume Information and Recycler. Should I replace these with what's currently on my C drive; should I give them another name; or should I not copy them across?

Thanks once again.

[rshaffer61]

No you just want the data... photos, documents, music, videos or movies.
Programs and all that if need to be have to be reinstalled.
What you are trying to do is to backup the important data in case something goes wrong with the repair option.

[Canary]

OK - I'm finally there.

All my Documents and Settings have been backed up, so I guess I'm ready to move on to the repair stage?

Thanks.

[rshaffer61]

Yep so lets see if we can do this now.



Repair Installation Instructions

· Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and then Restart your computer.

· At the first post screen start tapping the Del key to enter System Bios
· Find the Advance Options or Boot Sequence screen.
· You will need to change the boot sequence so that the CDrom is first and the HD is second.
· Press F10 to Save and Exit and then press Enter to accept.
· The system will now reboot
· When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
· When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER
· To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
· At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

· On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
· Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected and highlighted in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.
· Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

You can also go HERE
to read a step by step tutorial with screenshots.

[Canary]

Hello.

As per posts 7 and 9 of this thread, I'm not getting the same steps that you outlined, or that are in the tutorial you posted a link to.

It's all about partitions and "Disc 0 at Id 0" etc

[rshaffer61]

OK you select partitioned space and then format using NTFS
DO NOT USE THE QUICK FORMAT METHOD
Use the regular method.

[Canary]

Hi.

I did it, and my computer has now been restored to its original state.

Thanks for all your invaluable help so far.

Now for the next question - and I'm really really hoping for the right answer! . . .

If I reboot in Linux and copy the data files from the external hard drive back to my C drive, will it automatically put them into the correct Users' areas on the computer?

Thanks again.

[rshaffer61]

No you will have to manually copy them back to the original folders.
If the folders are not there you will have to create them in their original locations.

If you didn't have to format the external with Linux you should be able to access it thru windows now with no problem.

[Canary]

The thing is that I'm not sure how to get files back into shared folders.=

For example (and I hope this makes sense) . . .

There are a number of icons that were on both users' desktops and therefore in a folder called Shared Documents, or something like that. But I now don't know where to put the folder called Shared Documents. At the monment, it's sitting in my section of the computer - how do I get it somewhere so that the icons appear on both desktops again?

This probably makes no sense at all to you - I guess what I'm asking in a nutshell is, is there an easy and obvious way to get everything back to where it belongs? Much of what was there before had been put there by the computer automatically as opposed to by me.

[rshaffer61]

Shared Documents is just that. Anything in this folder or sub folders is shared between all users.
The best way I can tell you is to create a sub folder of each persons name and then copy the corresponding data to that persons folder.
By chance when you backed up did you backup the data only or did you backup the complete folder or just sub folders.?

[Canary]

I backed up the folders as well as the data.

I think what I was trying to ask in my cack-handed way was, where do I put the shared folders? I'll put my folders into my part of the computer, and my girlfriend's folders into her part of the computer - but the Shared Documents folder . . . ?

[rshaffer61]

Before you do all that have you checked the original locations to see if maybe they are still there? During a Repair Installation you normally would not lose any data.
The backup i had you do is for safety only. If the files are still there then you have no need to copy everything back.