Nibblet

Last night I accidentally formatted and installed windows xp on top of one of my secondary drives which had a whole bunch of mp3’s and photos on it. I had to use restorer2000 to recover files deleted as a result of a quick format before my windows install.
Sunday night I decided to install Windows Vista RTM, wanting to get something new on my screen as I’ve recently upgraded to a Core 2 duo workstation. It installed really easy and quick. I didn’t have to install any hardware drivers and within 30mins I went from Windows XP SP2 to Vista RTM. I had decided to try Vista as it is now in a “final” release and I had a few problems with some of my software installs in xp, new means better right?…

I went about finishing a video production job for one of my clients in MacGregor SHS, and without any real problem I was duplicating DVD-Rs and printing DVD covers. I got a phone call indicating that there was an issue with some of the discs I’d supplied which meant that I had to do a quick video render from avi to mpeg2 for DVD. Unfortunately Vegas 6.0 my video editing software was not compatible with Vista as it runs on .net framework 1.1 and Vista uses 2.0 (afaik).

Anyway, I installed a trial of Vegas 7.0 as it is compatible with .net framework 2.0. It did attempt to install MSDE 2000 which is apparently is incompatible with vista. Somehow I got it to install so I can use Sony Vegas. However half through renders it would crash. In particular rendering the sound to dolby digital ac3 files.

I had also installed a beta of norton system works which I then uninstalled as I couldn’t sign into the messenger live service. After uninstalling and restarting (the first after installing MSDE 2000), I logged back into vista only to find that my connection to the internet is broken. After much stuffing around, I decided that I’m better off using my time to re-install Windows XP.

Anyways, I’ve done lots of xp installs in the past and I can almost do it with my eyes closed… or whilst talking on the phone (which is what I did this time).

Because I still had vista installed, I knew that when I was to set up xp, I would need to format any remnants of vista off my system drive. I didn’t “need” to, but why leave any room for conflict.

Going through the first stages of the install, I quickly wizzed through the drive and partitioning sections, not taking notice on which drive it defaulted to use. Unfortunately I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing, and ended up quick formatting one of my secondary drives and installing xp on “e” drive. Windows must default to a drive of it’s choice outside of the system c drive if there is an operating system on it already. Seems pretty stupid to me, sure I should have paid attention, but I would imagine that more often that not, that If someone is doing a re-install, they would probably want it on their c drive. It’s a percentage thing- my vote is that I want windows on my c drive.

I didn’t actually notice until I was in my new install of windows xp and was installing drivers. At which time I noticed that my “e” drive was now called “local disk”. After some inspection, I realised what had happened. My “c” drive still had vista on it, and my “e” drive now is a clean formatted drive with xp.

At this time, my heart paused for a few moments in attempt to build up courage to send blood to my brain to let me know the consequences of what I’ve done.

Anyways, I lost a whole bunch of mp3’s no big deal, a bit of old files that I never really used from an old backup and a few photos. Luckily restorer2000 recovered most of the files that I really wanted ie. photos from the 3 months.

So, as I pleasantly put it in the title, back it up! Back up anything you feel is important on your computer. I know you won’t make a silly mistake like I did, but you definately do not want the sinking feeling I had from the possible loss of data. Just remember, we are approaching summer and the storm season, lots of opportunity for electrical spikes and surges to kill your computer.

Peace out chocolate face!