Reinstall Vista and it's not in drive C:!

My hard disk is full of versions of Windows and Linux and finally the
boot mechanism failed. My last install was XP and its boot.ini which
took precedence over the earlier Vista one which replaced 2000 (no
upgrade).

Because Repair failed I reinstalled into the previous Vista partition
(which original Vista had re-designated 'C:' although not Primary 1
partition, as I understand it usually does). Afterwards I logged in
and found that Vista was now in F: which meant that it got lost all
the time looking on C: for what was now on F:. No IE, no MMC, no C:
\Windows\Wallpaper! Some old Vista is in \Windows.old which means
that my partiton is now rather full.

No MMC means no chance to run disk management and rename F: as C:.
Would invoking the real Administrator account make my acccess any
easier? 'net user' is probably the only way in...

I tried copying Windows.old over to another NTFS partition with a live
Linux distro but first time around it failed 810 times. I am retrying
it one folder at a time and so far, so good. Might be a waste of
time.

I want - if possible - to hold onto the settings and so on in
Windows.old if it's not too much trouble but I am ok about a re-
install if 'C:' can be guaranteed.

Any idea what to do next?

Pof

Can you boot into Linux? Why not use GRUB or LILO
to handle the boot selections? Is it that you prefer to let Windows'
mechanism handle the boot selections?

"Hilarious" <> wrote in message
news: ps.com...
> My hard disk is full of versions of Windows and Linux and finally the
> boot mechanism failed. My last install was XP and its boot.ini which
> took precedence over the earlier Vista one which replaced 2000 (no
> upgrade).
>
> Because Repair failed I reinstalled into the previous Vista partition
> (which original Vista had re-designated 'C:' although not Primary 1
> partition, as I understand it usually does). Afterwards I logged in
> and found that Vista was now in F: which meant that it got lost all
> the time looking on C: for what was now on F:. No IE, no MMC, no C:
> \Windows\Wallpaper! Some old Vista is in \Windows.old which means
> that my partiton is now rather full.
>
> No MMC means no chance to run disk management and rename F: as C:.
> Would invoking the real Administrator account make my acccess any
> easier? 'net user' is probably the only way in...
>
> I tried copying Windows.old over to another NTFS partition with a live
> Linux distro but first time around it failed 810 times. I am retrying
> it one folder at a time and so far, so good. Might be a waste of
> time.
>
> I want - if possible - to hold onto the settings and so on in
> Windows.old if it's not too much trouble but I am ok about a re-
> install if 'C:' can be guaranteed.
>
> Any idea what to do next?
>
> Pof
>

On 14 Aug, 12:59, "Renice Process" <holdri...@hillock.net> wrote:
> Can you boot into Linux? Why not use GRUB or LILO
> to handle the boot selections? Is it that you prefer to let Windows'
> mechanism handle the boot selections?
>
Well, I think a significant factor in the screw-up was the use of
'grldr' to load previous 2000 and Linux partitions! I found after the
screw-up that menu.lst had vanished from the 'true' FAT32 drive C:
but restoring it didn't help me. At one point, when it was invoked, I
got a grldr screendump of drives tried and INTs set etc. and so I
tried a re-install. And got drive F: :-(

I like GRUB and its menu.lst pal but am very scared of trying to get
Vista (if I stay with it) to boot from it. We'll see.

Pof

Re-installed and C: is where it should be. Re-installing is usually
the faster option. Well the Registry starts cleaner, anyway.

Pof

grldr (Grub4Dos) is included in pirated version of Vista Ultimate to avoid
activation. Get yourself a genuine copy, would be my advice

"Hilarious" wrote:

> My hard disk is full of versions of Windows and Linux and finally the
> boot mechanism failed. My last install was XP and its boot.ini which
> took precedence over the earlier Vista one which replaced 2000 (no
> upgrade).
>
> Because Repair failed I reinstalled into the previous Vista partition
> (which original Vista had re-designated 'C:' although not Primary 1
> partition, as I understand it usually does). Afterwards I logged in
> and found that Vista was now in F: which meant that it got lost all
> the time looking on C: for what was now on F:. No IE, no MMC, no C:
> \Windows\Wallpaper! Some old Vista is in \Windows.old which means
> that my partiton is now rather full.
>
> No MMC means no chance to run disk management and rename F: as C:.
> Would invoking the real Administrator account make my acccess any
> easier? 'net user' is probably the only way in...
>
> I tried copying Windows.old over to another NTFS partition with a live
> Linux distro but first time around it failed 810 times. I am retrying
> it one folder at a time and so far, so good. Might be a waste of
> time.
>
> I want - if possible - to hold onto the settings and so on in
> Windows.old if it's not too much trouble but I am ok about a re-
> install if 'C:' can be guaranteed.
>
> Any idea what to do next?
>
> Pof
>
>