Fresh install / restore issues??

My PC at ~2.5 years old has recently been giving me issues, with BSODs, a loud start-up fan noise, very slow to start-up, a fan coming on loudly at weird times, and was wanting to do a restore or fresh install of windows and programs.
I moved and/or copied all my data to another HDD, and inserted my restore CD, and after it processing Norton ghost (i think) and requesting the second CD, my PC finished and rebooted exactly as I had left it pre restore, i.e. all same programs, and data were present....is this right or wrong? So, did it restore correctly?
How do I go back and start from scratch, and do a fresh re-install, if I only have restore disks, and no win7 disks (I did purchase, and have and can see my licence no. in windows)?

Any other ideas/proposals?

 

Sounds like you restored a Norton image of your OS. This would mean you get everything back during the restore. This kind of backup is useful, when used in concert with a backup for updating files. The OS image is a large file, so make this and then update your files backup daily from your documents area(s).

If you want to start over, I think you would need either system restore disks from the manufacturer or a valid working Windows 7 installation disk. You could then reinstall the OS and I believe restore your files from the image backup you have (not sure about this...there are some very knowledgeable backup gurus here who can tell you more). I can do this using Paragon Backup and Restore I do know.

You may have a restore partition on your PC. Look in My Computer to see if you show an extra hard drive there. If so, take a look and see what is on it...

 

But the restore disks supplied to me by my retailer, should've put the PC back in the condition when i purchased the PC, I believe??

 

Yes, I think that's correct.

Did you check for a restore partition? If you have 2 drives in the PC sometimes the restore partition, if you have one, might be on the second drive. In this case, you may even have a RAID setup where your hard drive is mirrored, and this might explain why you are restoring to the same image.

This type of backup would only be useful for a disk failure, since you couldn't go back in time to undo damage to software. It's a real-time backup...exact copy of your current system.

Please take a look in My Computer and see if you see a drive icon other than the main one. If so, right click on the drive and choose Properties and post the size of the drive and the amount of free space...

 

get you now..., yes, still have:
windows (C), and the following new:
system (E) [78MB used, 209MB free] - but no files/foldrs seen.
windows (G) [17GB used, 1.98TB free] - this has copies of windows system folders, like "program files" & "windows", but worse, i believe it was my other HDD that had been full of data, have i lost it all or can it be found?
How did this happen with me not agreeing to it?

 

smurph...

Please post the amount of space on the C drive too and the amount of free space. Need to see how much you have on there.

Maybe it would help if you plop the restore disk you have in the disk tray and see what it has on it. Plop it in the tray and here's the rest:

http://247pearsoned.custhelp.com/ap...wer-wizard:-manually-view-cd/dvd-rom-contents

Perhaps you could take a screenshot (press Prntscrn and paste into your image editor...then save so you can attach to your next post).

When you say your other drive may have been full of data, do you mean the C drive? Also, are you saying that this may be where your backup was located?

Trying to get what placed the data on the 1 TB drive and what might be on the New System drive. Is Documents and Settings on the 1 TB drive? Maybe you could take a screenshot of that too. That would help.

Check this out. Sorry, I had to check this from the dummies site too. I don't use partitions very often:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/is-my-pc-hard-drive-partitioned.html

Check and see if any of the drives contain a partition. It will say at the bottom of the menu or the disk space will appear split into pieces.

Interesting...the restore disk came from the manufacturer. Did you add the 1TB drive to the system after you acquired the PC?

One last important question. Do you know what program exactly are you using to perform your backups? You must be running some sort of backup or the system wouldn't have restored to its current state. A restore partition should take you back to the original system state, minus your programs and files. If you don't know about this, this is something to plod through and determine. Perhaps you can find a clue in the System Scheduler. Look for a schedule for a backup program.

 

PC make, model, and OS/Service Pack please. Post a snapshot, especially need the Storage specs. If you reformatted, usually windows will put your data from a previous install in a folder called Windows.old for you.


http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/speccy.html

 

Thanks for help guys....I will try and answer all the questions in best order I can.
I want to state i did not do a reformat intentionally, and had no back up or image of current setup which it has self reproduced!

Drives:
windows (C) [1.71TB free of 1.81TB]
system (E) [78MB used, 209MB free] - but no files/folders seen, and seems to be a partition of C.
windows (G) [17GB used, 1.98TB free] - is my other HDD that was 100% full of data. now unseen, but what is seen is same as C.

I attach screenshots of: restore disc#1, speccy summary, and disc management view, and speccy text files of summary & storage.

I need all the help I can get, as i have no idea what it has done, nor how to recover, and looking like I have erased 2Tb of data without asking my PC to do such on a spare HDD....just don't understand how it did this!

 

So did you restore with Norton Ghost? Was that the program you used to perform the restore?

You actually have 4 physical hard drives attached to this PC. They are all very large ones too. Were you aware of that? In total you have 7 partitions, which means that someone has created those at some point. It's a little bit confusing to me, because partitioning is not a simple thing to do and you don't seem to have knowledge of them or at least that you have stated.

One of your drives appears to be broken. It says NULL next to the drive listing in Speccy and there isn't any SMART data for the drive. I guess that would be drive 3 in your Windows My Computer picture...

 

I believe Ghost started, though I stupidly didn't watch the full restore process!
I have 4 HDDs, but only 3 connected.
I am unaware of partitions, recent or not!
Any ideas, how to:
1. rectify HDDs & remove partitions (all partitions not required, and this restore of current pc isn't what I want). Also how do actually know which version & HDD windows is working off, I assume its still on C drive?!
2. possibly recover data from 1 x HDD
3. then later, do a proper restore

What is weird, I do want to go down the route of creating a partitions for windows after I have done proper restore!

 

I have ignored this for 3 months, due to me not understanding what I did nor how to rectify, due to the complicatedness.
So i sat down to fix, and started by updating my BIOS, which seems to have provided a fresh win7...but after looking in some of my HDDs, I now realise that my PC seems to have been working off the E drive, see pics posted previously. though not sure if booting from E or not...but current desktop files and program files are there.
ANY IDEAS HOW TO RECTIFY THIS MESS??
Any more screens req'd??

 

Going on the pic in #8 the system has booted from the first partition on Disk 2 - no drive letter - and then passed control to the C: partition containing your Win 7 system. That's normal for Win 7. It also appears that you have at some point attempted to restore an image of your system but you restored it to the wrong drive, Disk 1 instead of Disk 2, and that has given you another Win 7 installation but you are not booting to it as BIOS boot order is pointing at Disk 2 first. You also have two other disks formatted as dynamic disks. You should change both to Basic disks but they aren't being used and are merely a distraction. I would disconnect them while you are sorting this mess out - they do not help.

Unless you have done something to change where you store you own data you should see it on C:. You will also see it on G: but as it was when the image was taken, not as current. If that's correct I suggest you clear Disk 1 and set up a single NTFS data partition or, better still, disconnect that too for the time being.

That clears the decks. You will now have everything on Disk 2 and can plan what you want to do with it - clean install or try to improve what you have.

I'm not really interested but have to ask why you have made your life so complicated. You have more storage space available than most medium sized businesses and all it is doing is confusing the devil out of you, witness restoring your image to the wrong disk. rolleyes You are a classic example of how dangerous a little knowledge can be, and from here on you should be aiming to keep things simple.

 

Correction - looking again at the disk managent pic in the other thread that should be third, not second hard disk.

 

Many thanks earthling, will try and resolve as you suggest, and report back, although will be doing it gradually.
I use the storage, but maybe i'd better change my ways!
Its not complicated, all i wanted was spare slave drives....until the PC decided by itself upon a win7 reinstall to change disks, and again after BIOS update, back to same or another partition!
Think i am at least turning the corner as to what as happened, though how/why is still a mystery, and unlikely to change.