[Undertaker989]

Ok, I took my raptor out of my old computer and put it in my new one... The plan was to try and use ASR to get the HDD working in the new computer, but that worked to no avail.

I then put the hdd back in my origional computer, but the drive letter changed for it, and its giving me an error when I select the operating system that is on the raptor drive. I didn't anticipate the option of the drive not being bootable on my origional computer apon re-install of the HDD. I falsely assumed that I'd be able to put the drive back in my old rig if there were any problems, but its giving me a boot error now....fuckup on my part.

I am thinking about using the repair option to repair the Master Boot Record to get the drive working on my old computer, but I don't want to take the chance of making my other install of windows on that rig not bootable b/c of a fuckup.

Now, I would go ahead and just re-install windows clean on the raptor, but I didn't backup all of the files in my My Documents folder, which the only reason I was using that folder in the first place was so I could password protect my files. I now can't access the files b/c of that.

I am thinking about doing a 'dirty install' of windows on the raptor, which is basically to put the raptor in the new rig, and install windows over the existing installation, BUT ONLY IF IT DOESN'T DELETE THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDERS FOR THE ORIGIONAL INSTALL ON THERE.
In other words...I want to get that raptor drive bootable so I can access the files on it.

so, rant aside, the question is this:

if I install windows on a partition that allready has windows installed, will it delete the "my documents" folder containing my files?

[hans5849]

possibly

[PeNZ]

no, when you get on the setup, and it shows you what windows are installed, press R on it. It will install windows over the top of everything. Leaving all the files/programs intact.

[hans5849]

if you use nlite to setup your XP install i know you can change the directory.

[Undertaker989]

i found a better solution to my problem. I changed ownership permissions of the folders that I had set to private in my other install of windows, thus allowing me to access the files that I had on the other windows install.

How to do this:

1. goto control panel
2. folder options
3. view
4. uncheck "use simple file sharing and security"
5. right click on the secured folder you need access to.
6. goto sharing and security>security tab>advanced, and change the owner to your account (must be an admin).

whoalla...all permissions for the files you changed ownership of are reset and you can access them freely.

[Devzero]

For future reference, you could have also got Windows to boot by using the following commands at the recovery console. Boot from the Windows CD and at the first screen, hit r to access the console:

fixmbr
fixboot
bootcfg /rebuild

That should get the MBR fixed, and then tell Windows how to find your installation.