Clean reinstall of windows XP. Do I lose my files?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve lost access to Windows. BSOD, and now I can’t get in anymore. For me, the simplest thing to do would be just to reinstall windows.

The catch: I can’t access windows, so I can’t back up my files. And, naturally, I ain’t exactly been backing up regularly.

I tried a repair install, and I’m pretty sure that made things worse, somehow. I was able to boot into safe mode before, not anymore. So, I wanted to do a clean reinstall.

Are my documents, images and songs going to be wiped, or is it just the programs that have to be reinstalled? I’m not concerned about reinstalling drivers and programs. Just having to lose songs that I bought and images that are no longer on my camera.

2

It’s been my experience that reinstalling Windows does nothing to your data files; it overwrites the Windows OS files, any drivers you had installed, and any of the SPs that have been downloaded and installed. You should be OK.

Last time you were able to boot into Safe Mode, you should have tried using the System Restore function to “step back” to an earlier save point - it might have saved you some aggravation (unless you *did *try that, in which case just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

3

Your files will still be there as long as you don’t allow it to do a format. Depending on what and where they are, they still may be a pain to re-organize and associate with the right programs (Outlook data for example) but it should still be there.

4

A clean Windows install usually starts with a formatting of the destination partition, so you will indeed lose the files in that partition. And you will lose everything if that’s your only partition. The reason for a clean install is to avoid bringing along all the baggage from the previous install. So it’s highly recommended that you find some means to get all the data off your drive before a clean install. You got into safe mode once and you probably can do it again. Once there, you should be able to access your data files.

5

You have several options I can think of, assuming that your disk is OK and it’s just windows that is messed up:

  1. Buy another hard disk, make the current disk either the secondary master, or the primary slave drive. Reinstall windows on the new hard disk, and your old drive shows up as D: with all your files intact.

I think this is the best option, because there’s no chance of losing anything on the current drive accidentally, especially if you only have the new drive connected during installation, and connect the old drive after Windows is up and running.

  1. Boot from WinXP pro disk and use the recovery console, or create and boot from a Bart PE boot disk. You can rename the C:\Windows and C:\Documents and Settings folders to something else. Then find the option in the Windows install CD to install without wiping the drive. It’ll install a fresh copy of XP (if you don’t rename the directories, you end up with it trying to save the old settings and programs, including whatever is causing the BSOD).

It’s also possible to create a BartPE disk that has DeepBurner on it, which will allow you to burn backup CDs of your files before installing Windows.

I’ve done this in the past, so I know it’s possible, but I have XP pro so it might not be possible with home edition to install without wiping the drive.

  1. Create a System Rescue CD, boot from it and use QtParted to resize your NTFS partition so you have some empty space on the disk (enough to hold windows). Then use the Windows install CD, and figure out how to tell it to install to the empty space rather than the existing partition. I’m not 100% sure this option will work for you. You should end up with the old partition showing up as the D: drive.
6

I did try that, and for some reason, it doesn’t seem to do a thing.

Thanks everyone for your advice. I’m goin’ in…

7

I am assuming Windows XP. To repair an existing Windows installation without losing your data:

8

Cool! I was going to suggest this, but that’s even better.

9

There are a number of options - two of my favorites are a cheap USB 2.0 drive case (get them for maybe $15-20 at any computer store) so you can pop the old drive out, put a new one in and salvage your data later; second option is to make a USB memory stick bootable, put some minimal OS on there and a few choice utilities.

I’ve got one around here that boots to DOS and has XCOPY, NTFSDOS and a few other such things. As long as the old hard drive is physically OK you can then copy your data to the USB drive and reinstall Windows XP at your leisure.