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Stephen R.
December 5th 03, 12:39 AM
Dear Dan,

Thanks for the detailed reply, I suspected that this
might well be the case.

That only thing that still raises doubts is that data on
her desktop. This resides in C:\Documents and
Settings\UserName\Desktop As WIn XP also has the same
directory structure might it not overwrite the Documents
and Settings folder thus losing those files?

Have you had any experieince with a similar problem?

All the best,
Stephen

>-----Original Message-----
>this depends on how you install windows. if you choose
to install on the
>same disk and install windows in the default directory,
then you will not
>loose any data. windows 2000 installs into the "winnt"
directory, while
>windows xp installs into the "windows" directory. simply
installing windows
>xp will not overwrite the windows 2000 installation, but
it will overwrite
>the boot files (system partition) so, yes, this will fix
your bootup
>problem.
>
>however, i recommend that, after installing xp and
recovering and backing up
>all of your data, that you format your disk and do a
clean installation.
>this will help to mitigate the problems with installing
xp over w2k -
>duplicate profile folders and residual files/folders
from w2k, as well as
>the winnt directory taking up a lot of hdd space.
>
>Dan DeStefano
>
>
>"Stephen R" > wrote in message
...
>> Does a full install of XP on an exisitng 2000 machine
>> that has boot problems overwite data on a single
>> partititioned NTFS hard disk?
>>
>> ____________________________________________
>>
>> Backgroud:-
>>
>> A friend who lives in a remote location has a Win2000
pro
>> installation that has corrupted and will not boot.
>>
>> She has since bought Win XP Pro (full version) and
would
>> like to install this but not overwite the data on
drive c
>> as unfortunately she has not backed up in some time and
>> has data both in directories off the root and in
>> directories on her desktop (this is a 30Gb drive
>> partitioned as a single drive using NTFS).
>>
>> As all attempts to fix the boot problem using Win 2000
>> recovery console have failed (fixboot, fixmbr,
replacing
>> pagefile.sys etc) and she has not made an Emergency
>> Repair Disc. She can see data directories on the C:
>> drive but cannot change to anything but WINNT and
entire
>> directories are way too big to copy onto floppies.
>>
>> She has started an install using the XP CD and, as she
>> cannot start her existing operating system, is not
>> offered the choice of upgrading and can only perform a
>> full install. She went with this as far as setup
asking
>> her about disk partitioning and chickened out worried
>> that this would format the hard drive. Does it?
>>
>> At this moment I have told her to hold off and wait
till
>> the end of next week when another tech minded friend is
>> visiting and have him remove the hard disk and run it
as
>> a slave on another machine to save the data and this is
>> indeed a good option, however she is anxious to acces
>> some of the data as soon as possible to work on it.
>>
>> If XP can clean install without overwiting the data she
>> can then save the precious data by transferring it to
>> another 2000 machine on her home network.
>>
>> I would be extremely grateful for any advice.
>>
>> Stephen
>
>
>.
>

Dan DeStefano
December 5th 03, 01:04 AM
what will happen to the user profiles after you install xp is that new ones
will be created with the computer name appended. so, if your computer name
is comp1 and the user's name is jsmith, then a new profile will be created
for this user (when she logs on for the first time) that is named
"comp1.jsmith" and the original profile folder "jsmith" will not be touched.
this will not happend to the program files folder, but it is not a big deal
since many programs today do not store user data in their program folder.
however, many do, but the program files folder will not be overwritten so,
once reinstalled, you will be able to remove any user data in these
directories and back it up.

Dan DeStefano

"Stephen R." > wrote in message
...
> Dear Dan,
>
> Thanks for the detailed reply, I suspected that this
> might well be the case.
>
> That only thing that still raises doubts is that data on
> her desktop. This resides in C:\Documents and
> Settings\UserName\Desktop As WIn XP also has the same
> directory structure might it not overwrite the Documents
> and Settings folder thus losing those files?
>
> Have you had any experieince with a similar problem?
>
> All the best,
> Stephen
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >this depends on how you install windows. if you choose
> to install on the
> >same disk and install windows in the default directory,
> then you will not
> >loose any data. windows 2000 installs into the "winnt"
> directory, while
> >windows xp installs into the "windows" directory. simply
> installing windows
> >xp will not overwrite the windows 2000 installation, but
> it will overwrite
> >the boot files (system partition) so, yes, this will fix
> your bootup
> >problem.
> >
> >however, i recommend that, after installing xp and
> recovering and backing up
> >all of your data, that you format your disk and do a
> clean installation.
> >this will help to mitigate the problems with installing
> xp over w2k -
> >duplicate profile folders and residual files/folders
> from w2k, as well as
> >the winnt directory taking up a lot of hdd space.
> >
> >Dan DeStefano
> >
> >
> >"Stephen R" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> Does a full install of XP on an exisitng 2000 machine
> >> that has boot problems overwite data on a single
> >> partititioned NTFS hard disk?
> >>
> >> ____________________________________________
> >>
> >> Backgroud:-
> >>
> >> A friend who lives in a remote location has a Win2000
> pro
> >> installation that has corrupted and will not boot.
> >>
> >> She has since bought Win XP Pro (full version) and
> would
> >> like to install this but not overwite the data on
> drive c
> >> as unfortunately she has not backed up in some time and
> >> has data both in directories off the root and in
> >> directories on her desktop (this is a 30Gb drive
> >> partitioned as a single drive using NTFS).
> >>
> >> As all attempts to fix the boot problem using Win 2000
> >> recovery console have failed (fixboot, fixmbr,
> replacing
> >> pagefile.sys etc) and she has not made an Emergency
> >> Repair Disc. She can see data directories on the C:
> >> drive but cannot change to anything but WINNT and
> entire
> >> directories are way too big to copy onto floppies.
> >>
> >> She has started an install using the XP CD and, as she
> >> cannot start her existing operating system, is not
> >> offered the choice of upgrading and can only perform a
> >> full install. She went with this as far as setup
> asking
> >> her about disk partitioning and chickened out worried
> >> that this would format the hard drive. Does it?
> >>
> >> At this moment I have told her to hold off and wait
> till
> >> the end of next week when another tech minded friend is
> >> visiting and have him remove the hard disk and run it
> as
> >> a slave on another machine to save the data and this is
> >> indeed a good option, however she is anxious to acces
> >> some of the data as soon as possible to work on it.
> >>
> >> If XP can clean install without overwiting the data she
> >> can then save the precious data by transferring it to
> >> another 2000 machine on her home network.
> >>
> >> I would be extremely grateful for any advice.
> >>
> >> Stephen
> >
> >
> >.
> >

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