Vista boot woes

[screwballl]

maybe, that is only if Vista can access it once reinstalled and he doesn't fully format and then reinstall... once it is formatted, it is gone

[Elysium]

He didn't format the drive at all for the reinstall. I formatted the drive for the previous Vista install, and he hasn't formatted it since then.

He's reinstalling Vista right over the previous Vista install in other words.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

OK, so i just got off the phone with my friend. The System Restore didn't work, so he is going to try a full reinstall. I don't think he made two partitions, but he said that Vista puts all of your old documents in a folder called "Windows.old" so he should have all his old files, right?

That means he is not formatting but re-installing. Much different. 1 wipes the hard drive, the other wipes the Windows and program files folders.

[Lead Head]

As long as you don't try to run a millions things at once, vista is fine on 1GB of ram. I run 1GB on my main rig, and its fine for what I do, which is mainly internet browsing and gaming.

[Elysium]

OK, I hooked up his HDD up to my computer (it's a SATA drive BTW) and I copied all his music, pictures, etc. onto my HDD. I'm in the process of wiping it using Active@ Killdisk and it's going very slow. It's at about 50%, most likely I'll have to run it overnight... the good thing is it's on the way to being fixed!

A clean install was probably needed anyway... Their not a fan of updating any sort of virus protection, and they probably had some spyware or trojans on some sort on the computer. They will mostly likely see a substantial speed boot also, to that's another plus.

[RA1D]

if that's the case, make sure to scan the files you've downloaded for viruses.

[stinger608]

Originally Posted by RAID

if that's the case, make sure to scan the files you've downloaded for viruses.

Yes, yes, yes, scan all of the file that you get for any kind of virus!!!!!
Of course you know, once you do a kill disk, it will have to be formatted, and not the quick format!

[Elysium]

Why not the quick format?

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Why not the quick format?

Pretty good explenation:

"A full format also performs a chkdsk along with removing the table, a quick format just removes the table."

"full scans for bad sectors. i always do a full format. it doesn't take too long on my small windows partition"

"another difference between quick format and full format is that full format removes everything, while quick format only deletes the root folder and FAT (file allocation table). deleting the fat has the effect that your pc doesn't find the files on your hard disk any more, but they are still there. but because your pc doesn't find them any more, it just writes over them... :)"

"another difference between quick format and full format is that full format removes everything, while quick format only deletes the root folder and FAT (file allocation table). deleting the fat has the effect that your pc doesn't find the files on your hard disk any more, but they are still there. but because your pc doesn't find them any more, it just writes over them... :)"

Whats the difference between quick and full format (formatting a hard drive)? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers

Ron

[Elysium]

Thanks Ron. We are in the process of installing Windows (after doing a full format). Windows is "Expanding Files" but it seems to be stuck at 0% (it's been running for an hour).

Is this normal?