Simple Computer question…or is it!

[Tel the Toad]

Hi,
Ok my M8 had a HP computer with windows XP installed, when he got the computer (brand new) he didn’t get the Windows XP disk with it as the OS was pre installed .

Now if he has any problems with the computer he just reboots it & all is well.

How does this work?

Am I correct in thinking that the hard drive could have been partitioned so that the operating system (XP) is in one section & all the other stuff in another?

If this was the case would the OS be in C: & all the other stuff in D: ? as I can’t recall it being this way I’m sure it only showed 1 drive & that was C:

I think his CD ROM was D: & his burner was E:

Could any1 advise? :nowords:

Cheers. TtT

[big man]

It'd help if we knew what you meant by problems mate.

Do you mean programs / windows crashing, or is it something serious ?

[Tel the Toad]

Hi,
Yeah my description is a bit vague…sorry.

All I can tell you is that when ever he had any problems like the PC crashing or working itself with errors keep popping up or if he thought he had a virus etc that he would “Reboot it” but it wasn’t just resetting it like switching it off & then back on again.

I will have to see him & find out exactly how this reboot was done. He couldn’t have formatted the whole drive, as he didn’t have an XP disk.
(He has since got a copy of XP & he did format the whole drive so now it is just all on the hard drive together so in the event of him having to format the drive he will lose all of the swag he has on the PC)

I’m asking because if its possible I would like to set up my computer the same way.

I know how to format a hard drive but I have always just used the whole drive & never had any partitions. I’m wondering if its possible to put my OS (Windows ME) into a partition on its own & in the event of any problems I could just format the OS section of the hard drive….if this makes sense

If the above is possible the thing I can’t get my head around is when you load new programmes onto the computer it changes files / settings in the registry. I believe that the registry is in the OS. So if you had loaded programmes that had altered these files but then you formatted the OS & renewed it, would the programmes on the PC still work, as there would be no files for them in the new registry, if you follow what I mean?

Cheers.

[Pongo]

Some manufacuturers put all the data that they used to put on the "recovery cds" on a hidden partition, on the hard disk. I assume that your m8 is booting from a floppy and the pc is getting reset to it's original factory state. Nice and simple UNTIL the had disk gets foobahed :grr:

[big man]

Sounds like he might have a ghost image of his setup. Basically, install XP and then install a program like Norton Ghost and it will take a 'snapshot' of your harddrive. It will make a copy of everything that's there - then if you run into problems, you run the program again, using your image, and it will set the computer back to how it was

Hope that description makes sense !

[danthescan]

Not being cheeky m8 but with those questions i would leave it alone his os was an image on the drive and restorable but now its got a new copy of xp and been formated it will be all to hell and if anything goes wrong it will be reinstall all the os and progs on it.

[Tel the Toad]

Thanks for the help & advice.

@ big man,
I’ve read about doing the Ghost thing on your hard drive…come to think of it I think I read on this forum when I searched for info about partitions on hard drives…it might have been one of your posts!


@ danthescan
Yeah my questions do sound a bit lame ….but its hard to explain what I mean :|
To be honest I’m asking questions & making statements about my M8’s computer & I don’t really know exactly how this Reboot that he has mentioned was performed…I’ll ask him when I next see him & then I may understand it a bit better & at least I could then explain it a bit better

@ Pongo,
Yeah your description sound a bit like he described it as working…but I’ll find out for sure.

So would it be possible for anyone to set up a hard drive the way you describe, with a hidden partition on the hard drive etc.

Cheers.

[danthescan]

Yes format and make a partition of say 2 gig and then install your os and all the progs you want including updates etc on c: then when you are happy with it use Nortons ghost to create an image of the c drive and save it in the other partition which would be d:then when all goes titsup you can redo it all back to how it was when you created the image.but all the swag would be gone so you would back this up beforehand onto the d: drive beside the image and then copy it all back when done.Hope this makes sense im not reading what i type lol