History of Events.
Took delivery of a new system from No competitor talk please mid week with XP and all drivers etc, pre-installed. Over the last few days I have been adding my own hardware, monitor, wireless keyboard & mouse, router and all my software one at a time, checking and testing there were no problems before installing anything else.
Last thing I worked on last night was using the Tranfer Wizard to set up my Outlook Express accounts, address book etc. I had some problems with this with messages stating that the Transfer Wizard was different versions etc. even although my old computer also has XP fully updated. I eventually had to use the XP CD on both computers to transfer the documents. Although I had only chosen OE settings and nothing else I noticed that it also included some files and changed my wallpaper to match my old computer. At the end of it all it did not work and Outlook Express flagged up various errors when I tried to run it so I shut down and went to bed.
When I booted up this morning Windows "hung" at the "Starting Windows" screen. After several attemps including a cold boot I run the recovery programme pre-installed by Mesh by hitting F10 during boot up. None of the optins tried made any difference including the final "most drastic" option of restoring system files. After the restore files option had run for a long time it got stuck at 80% then it decided to reboot anyway and there was no difference. I called Mesh and had the option of calling another number at £1 a minute or calling back during office hours!
I decided to try, maybe stupidly, booting from the XP OEM CD that came with the system. I thought this may have offered some options however it immediately started to reinstall XP. I left it to run as I know that Windows used to install on top of itself without losing any settings or programmes. when it was complete and rebooted I was offered a choice of 2 operating systems during boot up and chose the first one. XP opened as naked as the day it was born. I was convinced it had done a reformat and clean install until I found my original copy of Windows and My Documents etc. on the D: drive beside my storage and downloaded files.
I shut down and rebooted this time choosing the second option for operating system and found I was back to my original set up with all of my programmes and desk top intact. When it opened I was offered a system restore and I restored back to a point earlier in the day. Now all is working again and I will do a manual transfer of OE settings howeverr I now have the following problems.
Questions
How can I get rid of this bare copy of XP now occuping my C: drive?
When this has gone will this remove the choice of operating systems, which will freak my wife out, during start up and go straight to XP?
How do I then get my set up copy of XP, My Docs etc. back to the C: drive where it belongs, leaving my D: drive free for downloading and general storage?
Any assistance in sorting this mess would be most appreciated.
Axel
Took delivery of a new system from No competitor talk please mid week with XP and all drivers etc, pre-installed. Over the last few days I have been adding my own hardware, monitor, wireless keyboard & mouse, router and all my software one at a time, checking and testing there were no problems before installing anything else.
Last thing I worked on last night was using the Tranfer Wizard to set up my Outlook Express accounts, address book etc. I had some problems with this with messages stating that the Transfer Wizard was different versions etc. even although my old computer also has XP fully updated. I eventually had to use the XP CD on both computers to transfer the documents. Although I had only chosen OE settings and nothing else I noticed that it also included some files and changed my wallpaper to match my old computer. At the end of it all it did not work and Outlook Express flagged up various errors when I tried to run it so I shut down and went to bed.
When I booted up this morning Windows "hung" at the "Starting Windows" screen. After several attemps including a cold boot I run the recovery programme pre-installed by Mesh by hitting F10 during boot up. None of the optins tried made any difference including the final "most drastic" option of restoring system files. After the restore files option had run for a long time it got stuck at 80% then it decided to reboot anyway and there was no difference. I called Mesh and had the option of calling another number at £1 a minute or calling back during office hours!
I decided to try, maybe stupidly, booting from the XP OEM CD that came with the system. I thought this may have offered some options however it immediately started to reinstall XP. I left it to run as I know that Windows used to install on top of itself without losing any settings or programmes. when it was complete and rebooted I was offered a choice of 2 operating systems during boot up and chose the first one. XP opened as naked as the day it was born. I was convinced it had done a reformat and clean install until I found my original copy of Windows and My Documents etc. on the D: drive beside my storage and downloaded files.
I shut down and rebooted this time choosing the second option for operating system and found I was back to my original set up with all of my programmes and desk top intact. When it opened I was offered a system restore and I restored back to a point earlier in the day. Now all is working again and I will do a manual transfer of OE settings howeverr I now have the following problems.
Questions
How can I get rid of this bare copy of XP now occuping my C: drive?
When this has gone will this remove the choice of operating systems, which will freak my wife out, during start up and go straight to XP?
How do I then get my set up copy of XP, My Docs etc. back to the C: drive where it belongs, leaving my D: drive free for downloading and general storage?
Any assistance in sorting this mess would be most appreciated.
Axel
