Reinstall Windows

[spacepir]

The last time I did a re-install was about a year ago, and back then I didn't have a lot of information to worry about. I threw it on a 160GB HDD, and wiped my main drive clean (1TB).

I've decided to do another re-install, to remove all the junk I've gathered over the past year, but I've run into a bit of a problem. My main drive is packed full of information that I need, and I can't figure out how to re-install windows, and keep it all there.

Here's a screenshot of what I have:


I have lots of games, music, projects, movies and pictures on my PC that I can't move. Compressing them all would take forever, and I don't have access to another HDD.

Does anyone have any idea how I work around my huge problem?

 

[krofunk]

Ideally you would perform a backup and restore using external media..however you should be able to do an 'upgrade' install. Just boot from the windows DVD and select upgrade.

...been a while though, you may not be able to do it as obviously the version of windows will be the same.

 

[spacepir]

I'll boot the DVD and see if that works.

 

[Sharky]

Could you not move the things from Network (X to a folder on C:, format X: and install Windows to it, and then go from there?

 

[spacepir]

I could. The drive itself is pretty old, but if it's just the OS then it could be easily replaced in a few months when my birthday comes along.

 

[shifattk]

When I have to reinstall Windows, I just leave the files on the Drive, but I just don't format it.

Here's what I do:

• Threw in the DVD, while logged into Windows
• Selected "Custom Install"
• Waited for the Setup, Entered Key, blah blah blah...
• After the setup was done, I went to C:\Windows.old
• Copied & Pasted all the data I had in the documents, music, videos, & downloads folder to the new installation.
• Ran Disk Cleanup
• After it looked for junk, I scrolled down to the bottom of the list box and checked off "Old Windows Installation"
• Hit OK/Apply
• Waited until it cleaned the junk.

Done.

But in your case, the C:\ is gonna be a bit of an issue... For the above method to work, you need the minimum storage requirement for Windows, which is around 20-30GB, depending on the edition & architecture.

Try to free up 30GB (minimum for Windows 7, i think) on C:\ via Disk Cleanup and/or moving files to a separate Drive/Medium. Then, you could try what I did.


Or, If you believe that you have to format the drive, or just don't want to create hassle, then you can try what Sharky said.

 

[iaccessi]

You can perform either an "upgrade" install (even if it is the same version) or a clean install to another folder on the hard drive (or let Windows rename the existing directory Windows.old). The upgrade doesn't need any additional space in theory since it will overwrite the existing Windows and keep the registry information so that the existing applications will not have to be reinstalled (the point of doing an upgrade instead of a "clean" install). If possible, see about picking up an external USB hard drive. With so many 3 TB ones out there you can get an older 1 TB drive very cheap now.