Originally posted by Vehementi
but I don't have anywhere to put my sensitive materials that aren't replaceable
Well there could be a number of things causing your problem but from the outset, if I could refer to the quote I have made from your post, I think its a fairly good idea to have a seperate partition for important user data, downloaded files, etc that's seperate from the operating system.
for about 6 years now, this has been my d: drive. Here resides all of my downloads, favourates, documents, mp3s, etc. The thinking here is that if I wish to reinstall I merely have to reformat the OS partition and then press on, without having the tedious and sometimes difficult task of finding a home for the user data on my HDD prior to the reinstallation.
put simply, having all of your hard drive as one great whopping c: drive is a very bad idea in my opinion.
when I started at my current work they loved this idea, and its now the excepted model for an OS installation. this idea can be expanded to include:
-A games only partition
-A swap file only partition
-A partition for downloads (broadband users might like this)
-A possible extra partition for assembling CD layouts prior to burning.
I haven't focused on solving your particular problem in my reply here because i think that its likely you will be reformatting and reinstalling again some time soon anyway. what i am pointing out is that the next time you do it might be wiser to anticipate that reinstallation is a kind of inevitable thing with windows and that more sensibly partitioning for better data organisation is perhaps in order.
In the beginning when I had a single HDD I used seperate partitions but I later expanded this model to include 1 HDD for operating systems and 1 for data, etc.
Ultimately with software such as drive image
www.powerquest.com its desireable to maintain a seperate data partition for making drive images onto of OSs installed on other partitions. I have been doing this for a while. When i am now faced with the kind of problem you are having right now and don't have the time to investigate i can roll back to a last good known image. if that still has the problem i can go back further.
thusly one spends less time reformatting and reinstalling and more time using the computer (a lot of my early days of windows 95 use were characterised by repeatedly formatting and reinstalling after any major problem or experiment such as ie4 installation, etc....)
I have data on my system that I have managed to keep from this time, even in the face of, over the years, some fairly catastrophic events. Mostly I attribute this to the seperate data partition model which i believe to be a strong one.