Reinstalling Win2k Pro

I searched but couldn't find a good answer...

I'd like to reimage my machine. It currently has Win2k Pro on it and I would reimage it with Win2k Pro (same disk). What are the ramifications in terms of disk formatting? I'm assuming that if I reinstall windows, then I should be okay and it will leave most of my c:\ drive and all of my d:\ (slave) drive alone.

 

You've got a couple of options, assuming your C drive is your boot drive with W2K installed on it. You can reinstall windows over the top of your current system, known as a repair install. This will leave (well it's supposed to ) all of your programmes and current settings intact. You will need to reinstall all windows updates again and POSSIBLY some of your drivers like the graphics card drivers? This is the simplest option, but may not repair (fix) current problems. The registry will more or less stay intact, which also means if there are any registry errors and dead/leftover entries they will likely stay as is.

The second (and preferred option) is to boot from the CD and reformat and start from scratch and loose everything. A lot more work involved, but the system will be new and clean.

Your D drive will stay intact with all your data files, but ANY programmes installed on the D drive that use registry entries (which is most programmes) will need reinstalling as the registry entries associated with them (on the C drive) will have gone with the reformat. If this will be the case then I suggest you uninstall all D drive programmes before reformatting the C drive, and reinstall them later.

It's usually a good time (when reformatting) to repartition the disk as well, and as your D drive is a slaved (separate, physical) drive, you can safely repartition your C drive without affecting the D drive.