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11-06-2002, 04:41 PM
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#1 |
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Resident AMD enthusiast
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Kansas
Posts: 1,445
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Re-installing XP
I will eventually have to re-format a PC with XP and re-install everything.
Will I have to do anything as far as activation? TIA, Logan
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Main: Gigabyte GA-770T USB3 - Phenom II 840 - 4GB DDR3 - Radeon 5750 1GB HTPC: MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - Athlon II 250 - 4GB DDR2 - Radeon 5670 512MB HTPC: Zotac GeForce 6100E-E - Athlon X2 5800+ - 4GB DDR2 "Play a Windows CD backwards and you'll hear satanic voices, thats nothing, play it forwards and it installs Windows." |
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11-06-2002, 04:57 PM
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#2 |
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Shiro Usagi
Premium Member
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Kaneohe, Hawaii
Posts: 34,002
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Hi Colonel Sanders,
Got this tip from ActiveWin.com: "Windows XP Tips Never Re-Activate After Installation If you have to reinstall Windows XP you normally will have to reactivate too. Well not anymore. Just copy wpa.dbl after you activated the first time. It is located in the WINDOWS\system32 folder. Now if you reinstall Windows XP just copy the file back and you're up and running again."  Cricket
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11-07-2002, 07:58 PM
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#3 | |
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Computing Professor
Staff
Premium Member
Join Date: Jun 2001
Posts: 11,718
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what I was looking for....
Quote:
Thanks for finding this but the question I have to ask now is "How do I do that. " I need a walk through to keep from messing up.
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Asus M4A77D, 64 X2 6000+, 4 GB Corsair DDR2 800 ram, Radeon 5770. |
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11-07-2002, 08:56 PM
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#4 |
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HOT ROD
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: On the Edge
Posts: 4,565
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I have never been able to get this to work. Has anyone been able to get it to work?
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Fast enough 2 get by.....old enough 2 know what not 2 try -You know it was me
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11-07-2002, 09:02 PM
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#5 |
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Red-eyed Moderator
Staff
Premium Member
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Posts: 17,576
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I did have to re-install from scratch once and DID NOT have to re-activate. The system booted and out of curiosity, I checked the activation link and it said my system was already activated. Anyway... if you do need to re-activate... it's no big deal.
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-At Ford, quality is job #1, job #2 is making them explode. ~Norm MacDonald, SNL News -Switching to Glide..Balancing in my head..inside of me... taking the glide path instead. |
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11-07-2002, 11:01 PM
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#6 |
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Member (6 bit)
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Newark CA -- Bay Area
Posts: 55
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I hope I'm not bastardizing this thread but I don't think it's not too far off topic...
I was trying to re-install XP Home Ed as a corrective measure for another hardware problem I created for myself. When asked if I wanted to convert the drive to NTFS (from FAT32), I responded yes and after the installation was complete, all I had on the desktop was the recycle bin. None of the programs were listed in the Start Menu, however, a quick look into the C: drive showed that they were all there. I read the disclaimer that the user settings would be erased, so I backed up all the files in My Documents and in the Shared Folders but now I don't know what I can do with it  .Other attempts to re-install Windows yielded the same results so now I want to start from scratch. How do you format an NTFS volume to re-install the OS? Thanks. |
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11-07-2002, 11:21 PM
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#7 |
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Member (12 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Illinois
Posts: 3,557
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I've re-activated several times and I've never got the wpa.dbl thing to work. Each time I have re-installed XP I just click on the "activate over the internet" link and it always comes back "already activated".
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11-07-2002, 11:33 PM
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#8 |
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Computing Professor
Staff
Premium Member
Join Date: Jun 2001
Posts: 11,718
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jaws1nbt,
I'm not sure but this link to the microsoft support maybe what you're looking for. http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q279769 |
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11-08-2002, 01:17 PM
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#9 |
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Member (6 bit)
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Newark CA -- Bay Area
Posts: 55
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Thanks Pam,
That information will take care of the first half of my problem. The second part is getting the system to recognize programs that were previously installed and are now not found in the Programs menu. I'll scan through the MS support site but if anyone has a quick fix, I hope to hear from them. |
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11-12-2002, 10:16 AM
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#10 |
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Member (14 bit)
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Kelowna, B.C., Canada
Posts: 9,138
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jaws....I have a feeling that your reinstall didn't install over top of the original, and you have two versions of XP on your computer, the old one that has problems and a new one that has nothing in it.
If you've backed up stuff to disk, then you can use any good boot disk to fdisk/format the drive (fat32) then install XP. If you don't have your stuff saved to a separate disk(s), then it gets far more difficult. Please give us a few more details so we can get you up and running without losing your stuff. |
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11-12-2002, 04:25 PM
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#11 |
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Member (6 bit)
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Newark CA -- Bay Area
Posts: 55
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Jim,
Thanks for the reply. I backed up all of my important personal files and data just in case I need to re-format. However, the only boot disk that I have was created with Win98SE and I've since converted the drive to NTFS which won't allow me to use that particular boot disk. So, I need to find a way to format over NTFS (and back to FAT32) so that I can load my OS from scratch (Win98SE to XP HEd). I've heard that I can do this with Partition Magic, but at this point, I don't want to go out and purchase another program unless I absolutely have no other choice (like free/shareware). Any suggestions? This computer has been down for almost 3 weeks now  It's worse than being without a TV.
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11-12-2002, 05:24 PM
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#12 |
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Member (8 bit)
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: sort of Upstate NY
Posts: 203
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Jaws:
Just change your bios to boot from your cd and run the installation on your XP Home disk. You don't need to convert back to FAT again. If your XP disk is an upgrade disk at some point in the setup it will ask you to put your old Win 98 SE disk into the CD drive. Other than that the upgrade disk is the same as a full version. If you want to go back to Win 98SE, go through the same process but when the XP Home setup gives you the opportunity to reformat as NTFS or FAT32, choose FAT. When its done cancel the setup and you will be all set to reinstall 98SE. I've done stuff like this too many times so I bought Drive Image off Ebay. You might want to give a try. You can make an image of a pristine system set up and just load the image when things go haywire. Good Luck. HT |
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11-12-2002, 05:42 PM
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#13 |
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Member (14 bit)
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Kelowna, B.C., Canada
Posts: 9,138
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You CAN use your 98 bootdisk to get the drive back.
Boot to it, type: fdisk Remove all non-dos extended partitions. Remove all non-dos primary paritions. Restart, say YES to large disk support. etc. The other option is to get the drive installer disk from the mfg website of the disk. You can always get a drive back (to fat32) with one of those. |
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11-12-2002, 06:37 PM
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#14 |
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Member (6 bit)
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Newark CA -- Bay Area
Posts: 55
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HT, I tried booting directly to the CD but it just went straight into the XP login screen. So I went back to my Win98 disk to boot from there and (Jim, you're right!!!) proceeded to remove the existing NTFS partition and re-format the disk.
HARD KNOCKS XP Tip: Create a restore point to go back to when and if problems occur. Thanks guys. |
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