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<b>Message ID:</b> 23628 <br/>
<b>Date:</b> Mon Jan 29 15:45:44 GMT 2001 <br/>
<b>Author:</b> Olgwinn Pendragun <br/>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: (OT) Tech problem, any suggestions? <br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-1764736574">I really shudder when I hear people recommend that you reformat your drive <br/>
to install a new OS.  Sure, if the drive&#39;s data is totally trashed, that may <br/>
be the way to go.  But if you would end up losing tons of data by <br/>
reformatting (and honestly, how many people actually have a backup device <br/>
other than their floppy drives at home???) the easiest way to do a fresh OS <br/>
install is just to rename the Windows and Program Files directories.<br/>
<br/>
Rename the windows directory to win.old and the Program Files directory to <br/>
prog.old and then install Windows as though it were a newly-formatted drive. <br/>
  You will obviously need around 300mb free hard disk space to do this.<br/>
<br/>
After everything is done installing, you can go through the win.old and <br/>
prog.old directories to restore any settings, data, or whatever files and <br/>
delete the rest.<br/>
<br/>
Just my 2cp... hehe<br/>
<br/>
Olgwinn<br/>
<br/>
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