I realize this is tad late for you, but...
You rarely have to go to the full effort of re-formatting your hard drive
in such circumstances. Depending on your operating system, you can simply
re-install the OS in another directory, disk or even on top of your
existing one. Of course (again determined by your OS), you should always
have that thing called a Repair Disk (which contains a lot of information
that you may need to recover your drivers and/or information pertaining to
your software (so you don't have to find those keys again).
But that repair disk only goes so far, and you really want to have a backup
of your entire registry - there are some tools to do that floating about.
And, having said that, you want to backup the various files that contain
system and application information that may be outside those two areas.
But even then, you may not gather all the information you may need to
recover. Backups are the closures thing to godliness. Of course, just as
the cobbler's children run barefoot through the snow, "experienced" users
seldom do these steps either.
Y2K apps, and some of Microsoft's service packs have a tendency to destroy.
Just a few weeks ago, I had to rebuild my NT server because it had been
trashed while adding SP 4 to the OS (and, of course, I didn't have the
latest repair disk - or any of the other niceties).
Here's a tip that you may not find out there - and it can cost you, but not
too much. Use a small (in today's terminology, small is less than 2 gb)
disk for the OS and associated files. Then install all of your apps &
store all your data on another disk. This can aid in backups, but also it
helps when you must reformat that first drive - you don't go killing
everything, and there's less of a need to try to play diskette roulette. I
have usually installed 2 OS on my computers - sometimes the same one, but
often different (for instance, on my NT server, I have two NT servers
installed, on my Win 95 PC, I have Win 95 & NT). This can be a help in
those situations as well - of course, there's more cost associated with all
that.
Bottom line - if you are not real savvy, consider purchasing a package that
incorporates a virus scanner, disk utilities and a good hand-holding
backup. The software will help you backup what you may need, and help keep
things from going south. The reality is you are the most important part
of the PC - you have to do something to keep it going, and you have to do
something to kill it. Even after you get the software, keep learning. The
software may help, but nothing is a substitution for knowing why things
happen or how to fix them. Even if you don't want to be a geek, the data
you may save is your own.
BW
At 04:41 PM 12/11/99 -0500, you wrote:
>> I don't think Alan and I are at war yet. ;-) I'm still too
>hung over from
>> that rum I had the other night to do battling of any kind.
>I'm getting too
>> old to indulge, me thinks.
>>
>> -hippyman
>
>
>;-D
>
><inhale> I know what you mean. I'm 51 here. I don't think it's
>so much that aging takes the 'fight' out of me, it's more like
>aging puts more 'sense' in me. So I fight far less, but far more
>effectively.
>
>I too recently wiped out my hard drive and "lost everything". I
>"felt your pain" when I was reading about your situation. My
>tradgedy happened when I downloaded a "y2k" analysis app.
><inhale> When I executed the program I lost my "Dial Up
>Networking" (at the time I didn't even know what DUN was, all I
>knew was that I couldn't access the internet anymore or dial out
>with my telephone app.) Things went rapidly downhill from there,
>mostly due to my own rookie status I think.
>
>I was reduced to nothing but Windows DOS and I knew 'nothing'
>about dos. Got a DOS book; discovered how minimul my dos seemed
>to be; could see all my important files (apps, customer files,
>etc.) sitting right there on C drive; could only access A drive,
>no access to my ZIP drive - so I couldn't save any files larger
>than 1.44 megs, right. Well 99.9% of everything I wanted to save
>was larger than 1.44M so you can guess the rest. After 2 weeks
>of wrangling, on my own, with no help - I saved what I could to
>floppies and reformatted the hard drive.
>
>My two main pains were:
>
>1.) Having to run around the internet and "re-download" all the
>updates I'd acquired in the last 2 years.
>2.) Having to contact online vendors and acquire new "keys" to
>apps I'd purchased from them online and received floppies for
>(reinstalling needed a new "key") and contacting online vendors
>and "re-aquiring" downloaded apps that I'd purchased.
>
>Well the crash was on Friday night Nov. 5; I was back up and
>online (minimally) on Friday night Nov. 19 and only now on Dec.
>11 can I say the fire's out and the smoke has cleared. I think
>I'm still a 'rookie', but not quite the rookie I was. Funny
>thing is though, I still haven't bothered learening anything
>about how and what to "backup". I've read the basics, but is
>that really good enough? Good enough for all the applications
>that I input data to?
>
>I think I read someone say (maybe you, hippyman) <inhale>
>"partition the harddrive and keep Windows in one partition and
>everything else in the other." I only understand that
>'conceptually' not the technical aspects of it. Where can I find
>out more about the impact of partitioning this way. Is there any
>"freeware" partitioning apps? Can't partitioning be done from
>DOS? And also more on the "art" of "backing up"? It IS an 'art'
>isn't it?
>
>I've got to say this is the coolest list I'm on. I don't
>participate much, but it's incredible how often I use the
>information that is requested on this list. My compliments Alan,
>and all you other 'hard-core' "Searchers".
>
>Happy Holidays,
>
>Alan Guy
>
>
>
