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Rescuing a botched OS install

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9 replies

by super_benners

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On one of my PC's i've recently attempted to upgrade to Win XP from Windows Millenium, however the installation program ran and reached a time of "12 minutes left" before freezing totally and the installation crashes. Usually, upon restarting the machine there would be a menu asking whether i would like to continue with the installation or revert back to my old OS, however as it has got to this point it has removed the old Windows and so i cannot do anything but reformat the drive. However as iforgot to back up several important files i was wondering if there was a way to salvage the installation or remove Windows XP from DOS using a start-up disk. Or perhaps are there any programs i could use from this computer by using the afflicted HDDas a slave?
Any help appreciated, i'm really stumped.

Thanks

9 replies

by speerjam2000

I would to try to install to a different location such as c:\winxp2 or just another name so that it does not overwrite the old OS directory(if it hasn't already), then you would be able to browse the old directories.

by kizbit

DriveImage or Ghost would work to back up the drive for you, but I would simply restart the install, it may give you a safe restart option, but if not try to repair the install. If all else fails simply tell it to install but do not delete or formatthe partition. Your user data should be left intact.

by thechas

You should be able to browse the drive normally with windows explorer if the drive is installed as a slave on another PC.

If you want to clean out the failed XP installation, and don't mind re-installing your application software. All you need to do is delete the Windows folder, and the files in the root folder. As far as the XP, or ME, installation CD will know, you have a drive without Windows at all.

Even though your programs are still on the drive, Windows will not know that they are there, and you will need to re-install them.

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