I am currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit (OEM copy) and I believe it got corrupted as it is causing issues during start-up (including hanging at ?Verifying DMI pool data?..? indefinitely). I?ve got an image backup of my HDD on a Windows Home Server. I?d like to reinstall Vista to give it a clean start in hopes of a more stable system.
From my understanding there are three ways to do this:
1) Reinstall Vista from install disc from within Windows environment
2) Boot from install disc and reinstall Vista
3) Wipe HDD completely, and then install Vista from scratch
I would like to keep all of my documents and installed programs in place (my backup is a HDD image, so replacing everything bit by bit is possible, but annoying). To do that, I tried option #1 but at the end of the installation it rebooted and said ?installation unsuccessful? and I had to restore back to the original (failing) install.
Then I tried option #2 (which I assumed would still keep my documents and installed programs) and it worked. However, while it never made mention that it was formatting my HDD, it looks to be a clean install. No documents remain on my C: drive and nothing is installed ? not even drivers.
If it did wipe everything, then I feel like it probably did a half-assed job. Should I just do a formal reformat and then reinstall (option #3) to get a very, very clean starting environment? If so, how do I format my primary HDD (it is not partitioned) ? I didn?t see that option when reinstalling Vista. I?ve heard of KillDisk? any good?
From my understanding there are three ways to do this:
1) Reinstall Vista from install disc from within Windows environment
2) Boot from install disc and reinstall Vista
3) Wipe HDD completely, and then install Vista from scratch
I would like to keep all of my documents and installed programs in place (my backup is a HDD image, so replacing everything bit by bit is possible, but annoying). To do that, I tried option #1 but at the end of the installation it rebooted and said ?installation unsuccessful? and I had to restore back to the original (failing) install.
Then I tried option #2 (which I assumed would still keep my documents and installed programs) and it worked. However, while it never made mention that it was formatting my HDD, it looks to be a clean install. No documents remain on my C: drive and nothing is installed ? not even drivers.
If it did wipe everything, then I feel like it probably did a half-assed job. Should I just do a formal reformat and then reinstall (option #3) to get a very, very clean starting environment? If so, how do I format my primary HDD (it is not partitioned) ? I didn?t see that option when reinstalling Vista. I?ve heard of KillDisk? any good?
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