I want to reformat (or erase most of) my HDD w/out losing OS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stag
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Stag

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Uhm, so pretty much as it is in the title.

I just got an old pc from my parents, and there's a ton of crap on it. I don't want to have to go through and manually remove everything, and I don't have the Windows XP install disc, so is there any easy way of doing this?
 
The short answer is that it is possible, the long answer is that no one has ever made a program to do it because its just easier to backup and then reformat
 
Is there any software which can remove registry entries and such for programs easily?

On searching the control panel and C drive, many of the programs don't really sync up...There'll be an entry in the "remove programs" thing for some Canon software or some such, but no folder for it in C, or vice versa. I'm also convinced that there's spyware on the computer, but I haven't been able to detect any with AVG, Spybot, Avast, or Windows Defender.
 
I say you go look for a copy of a clean registry, and copy it over yours.

Malware hunting proggies just don't work consistently, so they're not too credible.
Might I suggest getting an XP variant that lacks all of the XP bloat?

http://mustrabecka.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/tiny-xp-platinum-2/

It will work wonders for you.
It is basically a user-modified smaller version of windows XP that doesn't force you to have stuff like windows media player or internet explorer. It also offers more ease of registry editing and OS feature stripping and tweaking. It even uses that nice pretty Aero skin from Vista, even though its XP.

;)
 
Why is it a problem? Obtain a copy of Windows, format your disk and re-install the OS. You'll be sure to wipe out most of the mysterious malware mentioned in the other thread.
 
Darky, do you use that? And if so, where did you find it? I haven't been able to find any torrents.

Wooz, because Windows costs money.

I do have my Windows Vista disc, but I don't really want to install that on there, and wouldn't I have to get a new license for it or something anyway?
 
tiny xp is hard to find sometimes.
I don't use it currently, my pc is fubar til i go to the store later today and get a new hard drive, but i have used it before and its really quite good. its basically everything good about xp, and almost nothing bad about it. I still think ubuntu is better, especially after some nifty tweaks and mods, and linux programs are generally better imho (although they tend to lack intuitive ui's), but if you need to use windows (gaming/editing), this is the way to go without a doubt.
 
Yeah, I tried putting Ubuntu on it once, but it doesn't seem to like that pc.
 
You could always just setup a second drive as the Secondary Master and use that to install all of your programs. Hard drives are pretty cheap.

Probably won't solve your problem but it is the best I can come up with right now.
 
Stag said:
Is there any software which can remove registry entries and such for programs easily?

On searching the control panel and C drive, many of the programs don't really sync up...There'll be an entry in the "remove programs" thing for some Canon software or some such, but no folder for it in C, or vice versa. I'm also convinced that there's spyware on the computer, but I haven't been able to detect any with AVG, Spybot, Avast, or Windows Defender.
Click to expand...

You might try this: http://www.ccleaner.com/
 
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