Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat,
Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option

Fred
Langa shows
you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP
installation without losing data and without having to reinstall user
software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup.

By
Fred Langa,   InformationWeek

June 19, 2006

URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

 It's one of those software design decisions that makes you
scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?"

The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair
option,
and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red
herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at
first) somewhat confusing to use.

But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely
and nondestructively
rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving
already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also
leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a
fraction of the time a full, from-scratch reinstall does. And unlike a
traditional full reinstall, this option doesn't leave you with two
copies of XP on your hard drive. Instead, you end up with just the
original installation, but repaired, refreshed, and ready to go.

We've saved this technique for last in our discussion of the
various
XP repair/rebuild options because the fixes we've previously discussed
are like first aid--the things you try first. For instance, see this discussion
on removing limitations on XP's Recovery Console, turning it into a
more complete repair tool; or this
discussion
on the Recovery Console's little-known "Rebuild" command that can cure
many boot-related problems. (There's also lots more on the Recovery
Console here.

But when the Recovery Console techniques don't work, and you're facing
the prospects of a total reformat/reinstall, stop!
Try the no-reformat reinstall technique we're about to illustrate, and
you just may get your XP setup running again in a fraction of the time
and with a fraction of the hassle of a grand mal wipe-and-restore.

The First Fork In The Road

The no-reformat reinstall operation starts with a normal boot from an
XP setup CD. Ideally, to save time, use a setup CD that's been
"slipstreamed" to include the SP1 and SP2 patches and upgrades. (Need
info on slipstreaming? See "How
To Save An Hour (Or More) On XP Installs" and also this third-party site.

Start your PC with the setup CD in a drive, and hit a key when you see
the following screen:

Screen One

Boot from your XP setup CD to gain access to the no-reformat reinstall option.

If instead of booting to the CD your PC boots from the hard
drive,
you may need to modify your PC's "boot order." It's easy and only takes
a minute to make the change so that the PC will check for a bootable CD
before trying to boot from the hard drive. See this for more information.

Once your PC starts to boot from the CD, you'll see something like
what's shown in Screen 2:

Screen Two

Let the CD boot proceed normally and automatically through "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware..." to the "Windows Setup" screen.

After a minute or two, you'll see the "Windows Setup/Setup is starting
Windows" screen, shown in Screen Three. Don't be alarmed: It's still
just the setup process running, and nothing's been changed on your PC
yet.

Screen Three

The "Starting Windows" screen is a bit of an overstatement; it's just the setup process getting going. Windows, as we normally think of it, isn't running yet, and no changes have been made to your PC.

Soon after Screen Three, you'll be presented with the normal "Welcome
to Setup" screen, as shown in Screen Four.

Screen Four

The "Welcome to Setup" screen is poorly worded; the "Repair" option we want isn't the one explicitly offered here. In fact, the repair option we want isn't shown at all. See the text for full detail.

The poorly worded options in Screen Four lead many users
astray. The
only mention of "Repair" here is "...repair a Windows XP installation
using Recovery Console..." but that's not the no-reformat
repair/reinstall we're seeking. (The Recovery Console Repair option is
useful in its own right for fixing relatively minor problems with the
operating system, and we fully explore it in the links listed above.)

The repair option we do want--a nondestructive, no-reformat
reinstall--is actually hidden beneath the Setup option, "To set up
Windows XP now, press ENTER."

So hit Enter, just as if you were setting up Windows afresh and from
scratch.

The next screen, about licensing, gives no reassurances that
you're
on the right path for a nondestructive repair/reinstall--in fact, it's
the same screen you see when you're setting XP up on a virgin hard
drive. But this is only the first of many screens that the Repair
option will borrow from a full-blown setup. Press F8 to accept the
licensing terms and to go on.

Screen Five

The licensing screen gives no indication that this is a Repair and not a brand-new, from-scratch installation. But don't be alarmed. You're on the right track.

Next, the XP setup process will show another screen that you
may
recall from your initial setup of XP. It searches for "a previous
version of Microsoft Windows." In our case, we're not replacing a
previous version of Windows, but rather repairing the very same version
that's on the setup CD--but that's OK; it's just another poorly worded
screen.

Screen Six

Our intent is to repair the same version of Windows as is on the setup CD, but another poorly worded screen makes it seem like you're upgrading a previous version of Windows or installing one anew. But don't let the bad wording alarm you; we're still on track for a nondestructive reinstall.

Screen Seven finally shows verbiage that's not recycled from the
generic XP setup, but is specific to our Repair task. Setup should find
your damaged copy of XP and present it for repair, as shown:

Screen Seven

At long last, Setup begins to refer to a Repair option. Here, Setup should have found your damaged XP setup, which you can select and then press R to start the nondestructive repair.

If your damaged copy of XP isn't highlighted in the list box,
highlight it now. When it's selected, press R to start the repair
process.

The Repair process then selectively deletes system files in
the
\Windows folder and subfolders and copies undamaged replacement files
from the setup CD to their proper locations.

Screen Eight

The Repair operation replaces all potentially damaged system files with fresh copies from the CD.

The Repair process then works on the current setup's Registry,
leaving
much of it intact and rebuilding the rest.

Screen Nine

There's no fanfare, but this is one of the nicer parts of the Repair process: Setup retains what it can in the current Registry so that already-installed hardware and software will remain installed.

The system then needs to reboot and will do so automatically.
If
your setup CD is still in the drive, remove it so that the system won't
try to boot from it.

Screen Ten

With the system files freshly copied and the Registry ready for rebuilding, the system needs to reboot. Remove the CD from the drive so that the PC will boot to the hard drive instead of to the CD.

The first Repair reboot will take longer than normal. Don't be
alarmed. Also, don't be alarmed when Setup resumes. Once again, it will
appear that you're performing a full, from-scratch setup; there's
nothing on-screen to indicate that you're repairing an existing version
of XP. But although the setup screens are the same as what you'd see in
a full install, it's still a repair process, as will become clearer in
a moment.

The first two of the Repair setup screens ask for your language
preferences and product key. Enter these normally.

Screen
Eleven

Screen Twelve

When Setup resumes, it will appear that you're performing a full, from-scratch setup. But don't worry--you're still indeed repairing your existing version of XP.

Many of the next few Repair screens will also be familiar. The
"installing devices" screen, for example, is identical to the one you
normally see during a full, from-scratch setup. But Repair is actually
retaining much of the current setup's configuration and so will move
through these steps faster than in a full setup.

Screen Thirteen

The Repair version of the setup process skips or shortens many steps because it already has the information it needs from the existing setup. For example, Repair's "installing devices" and the network setup steps are both much faster and require less user input than a new setup does.

The setup screens don't reflect the fact that a Repair
proceeds much
faster than a normal, full setup. In fact, the time estimates in the
setup progress bar will be way off. You'll be done in far less time
than the progress bar predicts.

Screen Fourteen

Just as with "installing devices," the network setup proceeds rapidly because Setup can reuse many of the configuration details from the current installation. In fact, a Repair setup takes far less time than the installation progress bar indicates.

When this portion of the Repair is done, you'll see a "completing
installation" screen:

Screen Fifteen

The "completing installation" screen means most of the heavy lifting is done, and you're just minutes away from finishing the repair operation.

Setup then reboots your PC again, and this reboot will also take longer
than usual. This is normal.

Screen Sixteen

With the bulk of the repair work done, your PC needs to reboot once more and will do so automatically. The reboot will take a bit longer than a standard boot, but this is normal.

After the reboot, you'll be brought to an abbreviated version of the
"Welcome To Windows" setup pages.

Screen Seventeen

The Repair process ends with still more screens borrowed from the full setup.

You'll be asked if you want to register and--depending on how badly
hosed the previous installation was--you may or may not be asked to
reactivate the copy of Windows. Next, the setup software handles the
final networking details and then offers a "thank you" screen.

Screen Eighteen

The final steps in the Repair process pass very quickly, and you'll soon reach the last screen in the Repair operation, a "thank you."

In most cases, the system will now reboot for a final time.
The
Repair is done. It's a normal boot, bringing you to the normal choices
for login.

Screen Nineteen

With a final, fully normal reboot, you're done. Your copy of XP should be as good as new, but with all your previously installed hardware, software, and user configuration data undamaged!

If all has gone as planned, you'll find all the user accounts
and
passwords intact, all the hardware devices set up as before, and all
the previously installed software still installed and configured. In
fact, if all has gone as planned, the only significant change will be
that whatever problem your copy of XP was previously experiencing will
now be gone!

You now have a range of repair tools at your disposal, ranging from
simple on-the-fly fixes such as Registry
cleaning and safe Mode fixes
to Recovery Console fixes (see links in the beginning of this article)
and, now, a nondestructive, no-reformat repair/rebuild option.

With this information, you should almost never have to face a dreaded
start-over-from-scratch reformat/reinstall of XP!

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To discuss this column with other readers, please visit Fred Langa's forum.

To find out more about Fred Langa, please visit his page.

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