Reinstalling XP on large HD

I've got XP on a 250Gig HD. I want to do a clean install of XP over the current one, but because I have a large HD, it doesn't detect it properly, and says I have to format it. Is there any way around this besides backing up 200 gigs onto DVD disks and then formatting? I have no other HDs that I trust to store data.

XP SP2
250Gig HD with Intel Application Accelerator
i845 chipset
2.4 Ghz

 

You can only reinstall XP, not a clean install unless you use something like Partition Magic or Acronis to put XP in its own partition though they are expensive and they do ask you to back up your data anyways. If you're going to back up your data and clean install XP, make a 30GB partition for XP or even 10GB, and make new partition(s) for your your stuff so if XP blows up, you won't lose your stuff and could do a clean install if necessary.

 

I wont be the first to tell you to not only back up your 200 gigs of data before you have another thought, but, Image your entire system in such a way that you will be able to Restore everything (just like you have it now) (problems and all)… in case you get hosed and loose everything.

As stated, you can’t “overwrite” as you have requested.

Don’t know what your issues are, but you could do a Repair Install.

Here’s a pretty good link for how to do that:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Short of that, if you aren’t willing to at the very least backup your data (at least data), you will have no sympathy.

Reach into your wallet.

For the wallet part, here’s what you need:

a) Norton Ghost 10 (or)…
b) Acronis 9
c) A second physical in-your-case hdd (or)…
d) A USB/Firewire external hdd

USB/Firewire hdd… get Acronis as right now it is the best for doing backups to external hdd’s. But I use both Norton and Acronis and keep separate backup Images.

The above is to protect your current state (good or bad… what you have now is better than nothing AND, you can reuse all of the above once you get fixed to preserve a DVD copy of a good, working setup in addition to a backup hdd).

Once you know you can revert back to a certain state… then go for it. Do your format and fresh reinstall.

Do yourself a favor and change your whole view toward this computing thing.

Rule of thumb… what would a Corp or your bank do? Reinstall their OS without a backup?

 

Thanks you two for the info about partitioning, backing up, imaging, and trying a repair install. I'll check into them. I started doing a repair install, but it just dumped me at a command prompt with no instructions. Hope that link helps a bit.

I think the best solution for me right now will be a new, smaller HD because I plan on selling the system soon, but keeping the big HD, so I'll have to do it eventually.

For me, backing up data every time I want to do some system mucking is far, far worse than risking losing the data. That's just me. It's also got something to do with my not being a bank. So while I don't mind risking losing my data should something happen to go very wrong --it happened to me before, I cried, got over it, and asked for nobody's sympathy-- what I'm not willing to do is intentionally throw away my data by formatting the whole drive. I've got Partition Magic, but my computer randomly freezes, boots, or locks me out every couple of hours, so I sure as heck can't use that. Ironically, that's why I'm trying to fix XP. I wish I'd made a partition during the last install. Had I known it was impossible to simply deltree windows and start again, I would have done so. I'll get it right this time.

Thanks again you two!

 

You chose the first option of R for recovery console, you need to skip that and then run the R for repair installation.

 

Hello. I think it's better to repartition.
You can use partition manager software, shrink the current partition, so you'll get unallocated space, where you can create new partition for storage important data.

 

Hello. I think it's better to repartition.
You can use partition manager software, shrink the current partition, so you'll get unallocated space, where you can create new partition for storage an important data.

 

I can't repartition because my sytem reboots itself quite often.

 

Problem resolved. Thanks all!

For the record: I took the chance, bakcked everything up to DVD, repartitioned my drive, and did a repair XP install. It refused to do it from within XP because the version installed is newer than on the install disk, and Add/Remove uninstall routine for SP2 didn't work, so I had to do it by booting off the disk, which it did without complaint. It took about two hours to complete instead of the estimate of 39 minutes, and when it was done, my computer performed like it had 8 megs of memory instead of almost 800. I did windowsupdate and got all the critical patches, then downloaded and installed SP2 which took another 1.5 hours. Now my system is sweetly purring again. All the settings and installed programs have been perfectly preserved. I didn't have to change anything at all except for putting the screen resolution back to "eye bleed." A huge success, so long as the rebooting thing doesn't start up again.

Thanks again to all who helped.

 

Good for you. I would suggest using nLite ( it must be in downloads but I can't find it) to incorporate SP2 into a new XP disk, it's really painless to use and only adds about 5 minutes to a normal instal as opposed to what you had to endure.

 

Glad you got it working again. A system restore point should have been automatically created by M$. Check that it has, maybe do a manual restore point yourself. And as extra insurance it might be an idea to do a full backup of your system, as it is now, to DVD's, as the Irish say, to be sure to be sure. Bazza