Location of windows.old

swapalot · 21 Feb 2010

I just had to do a custom update of windows 7. I was told all my files would be on windows.old so I could restore them to my C drive. I can't find windows.old. I ultimately had to do this because when clearing my second hard drive (D) it also deleted the boot mgr which apparently was on that drive instead of on C as it should have been. After clearing D by Microsoft reformating it and custom installing windows 7 on the C drive I can't find my files nor can the computer find my D drive which is our back up drive.

Can anyone help?

Swapalot

Darryl Licht · 21 Feb 2010

swapalot said:

I just had to do a custom update of windows 7. I was told all my files would be on windows.old so I could restore them to my C drive. I can't find windows.old. I ultimately had to do this because when clearing my second hard drive (D) it also deleted the boot mgr which apparently was on that drive instead of on C as it should have been. After clearing D by Microsoft reformating it and custom installing windows 7 on the C drive I can't find my files nor can the computer find my D drive which is our back up drive.

Can anyone help?

Swapalot

Normally after performing an install windows.old will be at the root of C:... but if you deleted the boot mgr... the install probably didnt see your old windows install and it may be gone.

Flavius · 21 Feb 2010

Maybe this will help:Windows.old folder - Restore into a new installation

Darryl Licht · 21 Feb 2010

Flavius said:

Maybe this will help:Windows.old folder - Restore into a new installation

Sorry Flavius, but he said he doesnt see/cannot find the windows.old folder... so I dont think that tut will help him.

swapalot: did you find it?

swapalot · 22 Feb 2010

I contacted Microsoft and they showed me where it was and copied them back to my C drive. But now it is shown as the 2nd drive and not the primary so ow I have to get them to show me how get the C drive back to primary and the other drive as the secondary so we can start backing up the files again.

Kathy

Darryl Licht · 22 Feb 2010

swapalot:

So where was it, if not at the root of C:\?

This info may help other posters in the future?

swapalot · 23 Feb 2010

apparently it was at the root of "C" but since "C" at that time was not listed as the primary we still couldn't find it. Microsoft tech did some maneuvering to locate it. "C" is now the primary and not the secondary drive. I don't know much about computers and can only follow directions to find stuff that I do not use on a daily basis. Hopefully all is cleared up now. But we now also have a 3rd external hard drive which we will back up our documents and pictures as I had my fingers crossed that I would not lose them during the troubles. The tech wanted to do a reinstall on the "C" drive when it was listed as the secondary which would have wiped out everything because that was where everything was including windows.old. We caught that and didn't let them do it and got help from a supervisor and within 30 minutes it was fixed. Wish they had done that in the first place instead of taking several days of trying to fix it and making the problem worse the more they tried to make it better.

Kathy

Cielo · 27 Feb 2010

After a recent re-install of Win7, I couldnt find windows.old and a search couldnt find it. I found it by clicking windows start button, then my user name on the side bar and it was right below the appdata folder.

Darryl Licht · 28 Feb 2010

swapalot said:

apparently it was at the root of "C" but since "C" at that time was not listed as the primary we still couldn't find it. Microsoft tech did some maneuvering to locate it. "C" is now the primary and not the secondary drive. I don't know much about computers and can only follow directions to find stuff that I do not use on a daily basis. Hopefully all is cleared up now. But we now also have a 3rd external hard drive which we will back up our documents and pictures as I had my fingers crossed that I would not lose them during the troubles. The tech wanted to do a reinstall on the "C" drive when it was listed as the secondary which would have wiped out everything because that was where everything was including windows.old. We caught that and didn't let them do it and got help from a supervisor and within 30 minutes it was fixed. Wish they had done that in the first place instead of taking several days of trying to fix it and making the problem worse the more they tried to make it better.

Kathy

Kathy:

Does this look familiar?

Location of windows.old

Location of windows.old

found windows.old

re: Windows.old