Restore System Configuration

Good evening, all. Alright, main problem - I had a little accident. My laptop battery is dead, so it doesn't keep a charge for more than five minutes. I went to shut down my computer, and I brought it upstairs and put it on my desk without plugging it back in. So…. the automatic updates were running, and my computer died while it was in the middle of the update. As many of you know, that's a horrible thing. So of course, had a problem with booting up. Finally fixed it, did a Repair Install….. but now everything's as if I completely installed Windows again. I found my old documents, which I was thankful for, but now I have to reinstall all my programs, and now I'm under "Administrator" instead of my old user name "Pixie". Is there any possible way to restore my former configuration? (All the old programs, all my Firefox bookmarks, go back to being under the Pixie user name, etc.?) Only "Administrator" is on the sign in screen now. I don't see "Pixie" under user accounts at all, so I have a feeling I'm S.O.L, so to speak. I figured it'd be worth asking anyway….. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys!

A repair install should not have changed anything about your user accounts. It also would not have removed any programs. It sounds like what you did is use the manufacturer provided recovery partition, or recovery discs and performed a system recovery. This is what produces the results you are seeing. No, unless you created a backup there is no way you are going to go back to Pixie with all your programs installed. Be glad that the system recovery saved your data and that you are able to recover it. You will need to reinstall all your programs and create a new user account named Pixie if you want.

It was a repair, honest! I chose to repair the drive, or partition, or version of Windows XP, whichever it was - and it was through the Windows XP Install disc… I swear. Meh, oh well. Thanks for the help and quick response!

I have never done this, but I believe if you re-install WIndows on a partition that already has it, it will warn you first, and then back up your windows folder under WIndows.old. This is different than a "repair" install. This is a brand new, fresh installation but Windows recognized there was existing data and so it saved it before rebuilding a fresh Windows folder. Where you went wrong was that it never gave you the option to "repair" the installation, or you missed it and moved forward to the point where you told it to install windows on a partition where there was an existing installation of windows already. So, technically, if you have not done much of anything else since you installed Windows again, you might be able to erase the current Windows folder and rename the Windows.old back to Windows and your system should be back to the way it was except for some of the programs that might have gotten overwritten such as Internet Explorer, and Media Player. I'm not sure the best way to tell you to do it because there is no way you are going to do it while Windows is running or from the recovery console. You'll need a boot disc like UBCD. I have no experience with boot discs like these because I don't have any use for them. If you know what you are doing, unhook the hard drive from that computer and plug it into another computer. Then you can manage the files directly and do what I said you need to do above. If you can't do that, you will need to use one of these boot discs so you can boot the computer without actually running anything on the hard drive. You're venturing into the unknown really. Because of the way you reinstalled Windows it is even worse now than if you would've done a repair install or a system recovery. Now you have all your original files floating around in their orignal locations that are going to be conflicting with the files in your current installation. If it will cause any problems is unknown to me. But, your best bet now is to backup the data that you need, and perform a fresh install of Windows so that all old data is removed from the hard drive.

I'm really not looking forward to reformatting, but I should probably do it. *sigh* I mean, right now it doesn't seem too bad, but who knows, maybe it'll conflict later. I see a lot of former programs under "Program Files" in the C:\ folder, but of course some of them don't work. I'd be able to reinstall them, but like you said…. there will be old things floating about. Meh, I'm not sure what to do just yet. But I'll back everything up for sure. I'll probably resort to reformatting eventually. -____-

Computer has been acting really dodgy all of a sudden. It will freeze a lot and won't do much of anything after being on it for a couple minutes. I was trying to complete backing up my items, just in case I had to reformat, but I can't do that now unless it's in Safe Mode…. Appleoddity, is this what you were concerned about? Does that sound like a symptom of a repair install gone wrong, as you pretty much put it? I'm DEFINITELY going to reformat now, but I just wanted to know if that was essentially what happened. Thanks!

Its hard to say… You're going to want to reformat anyways.

Try booting a Linux "Live" CD like Puppy Linux. See if you can access your data that way. If yes, you can then save it.

See this post by Happyrck on GeeksToGo for Puppy Linux:
http://www.geekstogo.com/…..=findpost&am…21#entry1197721
Get the latest version available as the one he recommends is no longer easy to find.

Hi,
As an alternative to Ztruker's excellent recommendation to try Linux Puppy…if you are more comfortable working in a Windows environment, then its a simple job tto make a boot disc (CD) that will allow you to boot into a "cut down" version of Windows that will run in RAM and like Puppy will enable you to see and access your hard drive…you will then be able to see if you installed a parallel operating system on your hard drive (if so it will be probablky called "Windows old" in any event the clue will be two folders/directories both called Windows……)
Here's a link for the instructions:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
Regards
paws

I've actually already reformatted, but thanks for the great tips, everyone. I think I have a bad sector on my hard drive, because I was only able to do a quick format instead of a full one. The full one got stuck at %40. So….. Hopefully I'll get a job soon so I can invest in a new machine. Right now everything's working fine with the quickly formatted OS, but does anyone know if I'll see problems later?

Yes, it is very likely you will see problems later.

You need to run chkdsk with the option to perform a surface scan and leave it undisturbed.

Click start -> run -> type cmd and press ENTER. At the command prompt type chkdsk /r and press ENTER. Answer 'Y'es to schedule a scan during the next reboot. Shutdown and reboot your computer. Be patient while it scans your hard drive for bad sectors. Keep your eyes open for messages about "windows replacing bad clusters…" during stages 4 and 5. This means bad sectors were found and could be a sign of a failing hard drive.

For future reference, if you are performing a full format and it hits bad sectors it could possibly take a long time for it to move past that. Patience is the key in letting it complete successfully. Now that you have reinstalled your OS its already done, but you should not have moved past a thorough format on the hard drive because files may have gotten corrupt during the installation now.

Run the chkdsk and see what your results are. Your drive may be failing in any case, and there isn't much you can do about that, other than to replace it. All along your problems have probably been related to this.

Ahhhhh, FML, as all the kids are saying these days. Alright, thanks for the heads up. I'll let you know how that works out. *sigh*

This will be fun…. posting from my phone. Anywho. Okay, so before I even got to do the chkdsk /r, my computer decided it didn't want to start properly. It won't go past the Windows symbol when I try to start it normally. When I try to format it again (a whole format, was going to let it sit all day and everything,) but now the Windows XP disc won't go past "Setup is loading Windows startup", nor can I start it in Safe Mode. I got it to start it in Safe Mode once to try the Chkdsk, but it wouldn't restart the right way to do it. I told the boyfriend it has to be that I need a new hard drive, bad sector and all that. He told me it could be something else on top of it. I ran a diagnostic check. The diagnostic check said that there's nothing wrong with the CPU nor the motherboard. The hard drive however, failed the read test, seek test, and verify test. Due to "uncorrectable data errors", numbers 0244, 0444, 1A44. I was getting ready to order a new hard drive over eBay, but my boyfriend told me there could be a way around all this to fix the corrupted files and make my hard drive accessible again. I'm pretty convinced my hard drive is FUBAR. Are there any last resorts, or should I place my order now? Thanks in advance. My boyfriend gave me his classroom book "Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC" so I can learn me up some computer smarts, lol. I have a very basic knowledge, and I want to know so much more.

Hi, Getting a new hard drive is the obvious step, they are very cheap to buy and you will be able to get your machine up and running very quickly. As to the old hard drive, there are a number of tools that can sometimes help, the first port of call (after the procedures recommended by appleodditry,) are those normally offered by the hard drive manufacturer ( see their website for for details, otherwise Seatools are good, (your favourite search engine should be able to locate them easily) As your boyfriend has some views on this issue, once your machine is up and running with the new hard drive then he might like to deal with the old hard drive for you and see if the tools mentioned can help….a spare hard drive (if its reliable) is a useful thing to have. regards paws

Okay, seems that my luck hasn't been very awesome lately….. My Windows install disc got snapped in half by God knows what, and as I was pitching a fit, my boyfriend told me that it didn't matter because when I go to install the new hard drive, it'll require a different disc anyway since the Windows Install disc I had is the one that came with my computer with the old hard drive. Is this true? Am I going to have to get a new Windows XP disc anyway? Guess it doesn't matter really at this point, heh. Just curious.