How to clean reinstall Windows without a reformat

[Guest]

Hi all,Upon request, I'll post the methods I use to quickly reinstall Windows (on both Fat32 and NTFS systems) without having to format a drive or loose personal documents and the like. These procedures *only* remove Windows itself and nothing more on your drive(s).There are two different methods depending on how you've formatted your drive(s) to begin with: with NTFS on NT, 2000 or XP, or Fat32 on 9x-ME, 2000 and XP. It doesn't matter what any other possible data drive(s) or partitions are formatted with: the only thing that matters is what the drive or partition is formatted with that contains your Windows installation. So, you could have many drives formatted with NTFS and still use the Fat32 procedure as long as the drive where you've installed XP itself is formatted with Fat32.I'll list the two different methods as two different posts below.Take care, http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest]

This first method will work on any system where Windows is installed on a Fat32 drive or partition. This covers any operating system from Windows 98 to Windows XP - but excludes Windows NT since its an NTFS only OS by default. Windows XP and Windows 2000 can be setup on either Fat32 or NTFS formatted drives, so this procedure only applies if you installed Windows itself on a Fat32. If your Windows resides on an NTFS partition or drive, see the following method.--The first and most important thing to do before you start removing Windows itself is to make sure all of your personal or important documents are copied from any Windows default folders to another location. These folders include:Program FilesWindows (or any other name you gave the Windows folder upon install: such as Win98, etc - if it is different than "Windows", WRITE THIS DOWN!)MAKE SURE YOU WRITE DOWN WHERE YOUR WINDOWS AND PROGRAM FILES FOLDERS ARE LOCATED. For example, if they are on Drive C:, write down their location. For almost all Windows 9x and ME installations, Drive C: will be their location. With Windows 2000 and XP, you may have installed your Windows folder on any drive. In my case, I would have written down:E:Program FilesE:WinXPWe will be removing these folders during the reinstall process, so it is extremely important that you remember their location and copy any documents or data you wish to save in these folders to another directory. Your My Documents (on 9x systems) or your Documents and Settings (on 2000 and XP systems) will not be touched during the reinstall, so there is no need to worry about any documents in these respective folders.Make sure you look in every folder contained in Program Files and Windows for your personal documents and the like that you would like to retain. Simply create a backup folder on one of your drives to copy those documents in to, such as C:Temp. I usually duplicate the folder name for each copied document so I know where it came from once Windows is reinstalled.The above is most important for those that save their documents in the same folders where your programs have been installed: if you don't purposefully save your documents in your "My Documents" folders for instance, you should make extreme care to go through the "Program Files" folders looking for documents of yours you wish to save. By practice, its always better to save any of your personal documents, media files, etc. in one or two sets of folders such as My Documents and My Media. Not only does this make backup of your important documents much easier, but when you reinstall Windows itself, you are assured that your data will always be safe if you follow this guide.--Now that any documents have been copied to another location, its time to create a boot disk. The easiest way by far is to skip Windows way of doing this and install a custom made boot disk. This is as simple as downloading the following 891kb file and double-clicking it. It will automatically format and create a custom Windows 98SE boot disk, complete with the necessary drivers to access your CDROM, DVD and/or CDRW drive from DOS as long as they are not SCSI based:http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/w...es/boot98sc.exeThere are other OS specific disks you can download from the above site (such as DOS 6.22, Win95, WinMe, WinXP etc) and there are custom SCSI access boot disk available as well - these will not be covered in this guide however:http://www.bootdisk.comBut the above slightly customized Win98 SE boot disk should serve our purposes just perfectly. Included on the disk are 4 CDROM drivers if the default doesn't boot your CD properly from DOS (it should work on almost all newer CD drives by default).NOTE: For those of you without floppy drives, all is not lost. You can still create a bootable CDROM with your CD burner that will give you access to a true DOS command prompt. This guide won't cover that method, but you can find more information at this site:http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/--Once you have your boot disk created, you should insert it into your floppy drive and reboot your system from it. You should have your Windows CD inserted in your CD, DVD or CDRW drive while booting from the floppy. Windows 2000 and XP CD's can be booted from BIOS if your system supports it, so access to these CD's from a command prompt isn't actually necessary as long as your system can boot from CDROM. Access to the Windows CD from the command prompt can install any Windows OS, so this is the method we'll follow in this guide.Once booted from the floppy to the command line, type D: and press enter to change to your Windows CD drive (you may have to try E:, F:, G: etc instead, depending on how many hard drives and partitions you have in your system). If you then type DIR and press enter, you should see the CDROM light on your CDROM drive light up while the disc is accessed. This will verify that you can boot from the boot disk and that you have full access to your CDROM drive and the Windows CD for reinstallation. If you can access your Windows CD from the command prompt, you are ready to remove your existing Windows installation!WARNINGIf you do NOT have access to your CDROM drive from the command prompt, STOP HERE! Your CDROM drive most likely uses a non-standard driver from a command prompt than what is installed by default on the boot disk. If you are installing Windows 2000 or XP and your system supports booting directly from a CDROM, you can continue to delete your existing Windows installation regardless because you can reinstall Windows 2000 or XP by booting from the Windows CD itself. Even in this case however, you should MAKE SURE you can boot from the Windows CD by going into your BIOS and selecting the CDROM as your first boot device before you remove your existing Windows installation.Best bet in both of these cases is to STOP HERE and to make a post to this forum and someone will walk you through to make sure it will work on your particular system.END WARNING--Now that you are at a command prompt and have access to your Windows CD, we can remove the existing Windows folders to install anew. To do so, type these commands and press ENTER after each line:SMARTDRVDELTREE /Y C:WINDOWSDELTREE /Y C:PROGRA~1DELTREE /Y C:SYSTEM~1DELTREE /Y C:RECYCLEDDELTREE /Y C:RECYCLERAs you wrote down in a previous step, change the C:WINDOWS to your existing Windows folder if it differs: in the example above the commands would be:DELTREE /Y E:WINXPDELTREE /Y E:PROGRA~1etc.Now you have a system with no old Windows!--Time to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. To do so, log onto the correct drive for your Windows CD, such as drive D, E, F, etc. To do so, type the following then press ENTER:D:If your Windows CD is on drive E, you'd type E: instead.Windows 9x/Me and Windows 2000/XP have slightly different methods to install them from the command prompt. For Windows 9x, type the following and press ENTER:SETUPIf you are reinstalling Windows 2000 or XP, type the following commands and press ENTER after each line:CD I386WINNTThats it! Windows should now be reinstalling itself on your system.NOTE: If you own an upgrade version of Windows, you may be prompted to insert your previous Windows CD during installation. Simply follow the prompts the Windows installer gives you.--While the above seems like a lot of steps and may look somewhat complicated, it really isn't in the least. What this method boils down to is a few simple steps:1) Create a Boot Disk2) Reboot from the Boot Disk3) Remove your existing Windows folders4) Reinstall WindowsThe main points to be careful of are these:1) Backup any of your personal documents from the Program Files and Windows directories (and their sub directories) before booting to the Boot Disk2) Make sure you have access to the Windows CD in your CDROM drive before you remove your existing Windows--Well, I think thats it. If there are any questions, please post them here and either I or one of the nice people in this group would be happy to answer your questions.Take care and Good Luck,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest Joshieca]

Very good and useful information....thanks.....I take it your going to post another one for NTFS right?

[Guest]

Hi Josh,Yes I will. Things have picked up here in the office so I can't do it just yet. Will try to get to it sometime this afternoon or tonight when I get home.Take care, http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[brucek]

Thanks Elrond,I'm about to re-install WinXP Home on my wife's Dell, so this is most useful.Thanks,Bruce.