XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option
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Jun 19, 2006
Fred Langa shows you how to completely XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup.
It's one of those software design decisions that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?"
The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use.
But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. And unlike a traditional full reinstall, this option doesn't leave you with two copies of XP on your hard drive. Instead, you end up with just the original installation, but repaired, refreshed, and ready to go.
Here's a link to the actual page for the instructions:
http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText
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