XP+No+Reformat,+Nondestructive+Total-Rebuild+Option


 * XP No Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option **

Another lengthy tip but a very useful one

This tip shows you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup. Why, Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use. This facility lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does.

The no-reformat reinstall technique may get your XP setup running again in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the hassle

The no-reformat reinstall operation starts with a normal boot from an XP setup CD.

Ideally, to save time, use a setup CD that as been "slipstreamed" ( See the tip on Hybrid Installation CD), to include the SP1 and SP2 patches and upgrades.

Start your PC with the setup CD in a drive, and press a key when you see the opening screen: If instead of booting to the CD your PC boots from the hard drive, you may need to modify your PC's "boot order."

It's easy and only takes a minute to make the change so that the PC will check for a bootable CD before trying to boot from the hard drive.

Once your PC starts to boot from the CD, you'll see another screen

After a minute or two, you'll see the "Windows Setup/Setup is starting Windows" screen, Do not be alarmed: It's still just the setup process running, and nothing's been changed on your PC yet. Soon after Screen Three, you'll be presented with the normal "Welcome to Setup" screen,

The poorly worded options in Screen Four lead many users astray.

The only mention of "Repair" here is "...repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console...", but that's not the no-reformat repair/reinstall you are seeking. (The Recovery Console Repair option is useful in its own right for fixing relatively minor problems with the operating system.

The repair option you do want is nondestructive, no-reformat reinstall which is actually hidden beneath the Setup option, "To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER." Press Enter, just as if you were setting up Windows afresh and from scratch.

The next screen, about licensing, gives no reassurances that you are on the right path for a nondestructive repair/reinstall, in fact, it is the same screen you see when you are setting XP up on a virgin hard drive.

But this is only the first of many screens that the Repair option will borrow from a full-blown setup. Press F8 to accept the licensing terms and to go on.

Next, the XP setup process will show another screen that you may recall from your initial setup of XP.

It searches for "a previous version of Microsoft Windows." In this case, you are not replacing a previous version of Windows, but rather repairing the very same version that is on the setup CD, but that is OK; It is just another poorly worded screen.

Screen Seven finally shows verbiage that is not recycled from the generic XP setup, but is specific to our Repair task. Setup should find your damaged copy of XP and present it for repair,

If your damaged copy of XP isn't highlighted in the list box, highlight it now. When it's selected, press R to start the repair process. The Repair process then selectively deletes system files in the \Windows folder and subfolders and copies undamaged replacement files from the setup CD to their proper locations.

The Repair process then works on the current setup's Registry, leaving much of it intact and rebuilding the rest. The system then needs to reboot and will do so automatically. If your setup CD is still in the drive, remove it so that the system won't try to boot from it.

The first Repair reboot will take longer than normal. Do not be alarmed. Also, do n'o be alarmed when Setup resumes. Once again, it will appear that you're performing a full, from-scratch setup; there is nothing on-screen to indicate that you are repairing an existing version of XP.

But although the setup screens are the same as what you would see in a full install, it is still a repair process, as will become clearer after a while.

The first two of the Repair setup screens ask for your language preferences and product key. Enter these normally. Many of the next few Repair screens will also be familiar. The "installing devices" screen, for example, is identical to the one you normally see during a full, from-scratch setup. But Repair is actually retaining much of the current setup's configuration and so will move through these steps faster than in a full setup.

The setup screens do not reflect the fact that a Repair proceeds much faster than a normal, full setup. In fact, the time estimates in the setup progress bar more than way off. You will be done in far less time than the progress bar predicts. When this portion of the Repair is done, you'll see a "completing installation" screen:

Setup then reboots your PC again, and this reboot will also take longer than usual. This is normal.

After the reboot, you'll be brought to an abbreviated version of the :- "Welcome To Windows" setup pages.

You will be asked if you want to register and, depending on how badly damaged the previous installation was you may or may not be asked to reactivate the copy of Windows. Next, the setup software handles the final networking details and then offers a "thank you" screen. In most cases, the system will now reboot for a final time. The Repair is done. It's a normal boot, bringing you to the normal choices for login.

If all has gone as planned, you will find all the user accounts and passwords intact, all the hardware devices set up as before, and all the previously installed software still installed and configured. In fact, if all has gone as planned, the only significant change will be that whatever problem your copy of XP was previously experiencing will now be gone! You now have a range of repair tools at your disposal, ranging from simple on-the-fly fixes such as Registry cleaning and safe Mode fixes to Recovery Console fixes and, now, a nondestructive, no-reformat repair/rebuild option.

With this information, you should almost never have to face a dreaded start-over-from-scratch reformat/reinstall of XP!