Reinstalling Win7 on netbook with two harddrives

[daeniken2]

Hello!

My problem is the following, I'm sorry if it's silly, but I really need to be sure about it.

I have an Asus EEE pc, it has two harddrives in it, C: with the OS on it, and D: with any other stuff. I'd like to reinstall Win7 (from the hidded partition) with formatting the hard drive. I've put everything I need on the D: drive, because I think that if I format the hard drive during the installation it will only format the system drive and not the other one. Am I right about it?

I need a sure answer about it because if there's a chance that the reinstallation might format the other drive too then I have to copy everything to usb drives, dvds, etc.

Thank you!

 

[logicearth]

Why format at all? Just run "setup.exe" from the media you are using while in Windows and pick "Custom Install" it will move all most of the C drive to Windows.old and leave the D drive alone. No fears or worries.

 

[strollin]

If you have a "hidden" restore partition and perform a restore, it would be pointless to format the drive beforehand since the restore will overwrite the partition regardless. I don't believe anyone here can be sure that a restore will only restore the C: partition and not the D:. If you were installing Win 7 from a CD you would have control over which partition you formatted and installed but the restore software provided by the mfr may not give you that much control.

 

[gregrocker]

You don't need to format for full Factory Recovery as the utility does it for you. We'll need to take a look at your drives and recovery to see how to exclude your data drive, either in Recovery settings or by disabling it in BIOS.

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and listings using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

Post up your model number so we can look at your Manual.

 

[karlsnooks]

daeniken,

Welcome to SevenForums.

I'll bet that netbook has one and only one phsical drive and that he drive has partitions.

Did that Asus come with Win 7 installed?

Filling out your system specs will would be useful.

UPDATE YOUR SEVENFORUMS SYSTEM SPECS


User CP (3rd item in the top menu bar) |
in left-hand column, under Your Profile, Edit System Spec |


Use Speccy - System Information - Free Download
and/or SIW to gather info for filling in the blanks.

Do me a favor and add the word laptop or desktop to the “system manufacturer” block.

Use the “Other Info” block for Optical Reader, Mouse, touchpad, wifi adapter, speakers, monitor

Scroll down and click on the SAVE CHANGES button.
--------------------------
thanks,
karl

 

[theog]

Before you start make your Recovery disk.

1. Press <F9> during bootup.
Ensure to press <F9> only once during bootup.
2. Select the language you use and click to continue.
3. Repeat the step 1—2 in the previous section.
4. Connect a USB storage device to your Eee PC and click Backup in the Recovery System dialog box to start the recovery files backup.
The size of the connected USB storage device should be larger than 16GB.
Memory cards are not supported for this function.
A dialog box appears as a reminder if you have not connected the USB storage device for system recovery backup to your Eee PC.
5. Select a desired USB storage device if more than one USB storage device is connected to your Eee PC and click Continue.
6. All the data on the selected USB storage device will be cleared. Click Continue to start the backup or click Back to backup your important data.
You will lose all your data on the selected USB storage device. Ensure to back up your important data beforehand
7. The system backup starts and click OK when done.

 

[daeniken2]

Thank for the help, you are right, I only have one harddrive with several partitions

I filled in my system specs and here's what speccy found out for me about the partitions:

Partition 0 (this is where the system directory is, and several documents, all of them are copied to D: but not deleted from here yet)
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #0
Disk Letter C:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number 1E4584B0
Size 100GB
Used Space 58GB (58%)
Free Space 42GB (42%)
Partition 1
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #1
Size 15,0 GB
Partition 2 (this is the other one, it's nearly full because I've already copied stuff from C: )
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #2
Disk Letter D:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number 784E1247
Size 118GB
Used Space 112GB (95%)
Free Space 6.30GB (5%)
Partition 3
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #3
Size 20,1 MB

 

[theog]

Have you made the Recovery disk?

 

[daeniken2]

Have you made the Recovery disk?

I would but I don't have a USB storage device which is larger than 16gb

 

[karlsnooks]

Thanks for the info.

As others have mentioned, when you do that factory reinstall, you will lose everything on there. The reinstall will reformat your hard drive.

What does that mean? Get an external usb drive and copy (you can simply drag and drop) the documents, videos, music and pictures that you do not want to lose.

Let me repeat and emphasize---Your present C : and d: PARTITIONS WILL BE REFORMATTED.

You will also have to install about 50-90 updates to the resulting Win 7.

I just want you to be aware of what is ahead.

You will be reinstalling ALL of your favorite programs.

Would you maybe like to consider another solution to your present problem.

Something prompted you to want to do a restore to the factory state.

karl

 

[theog]

Have you made the Recovery disk?

I would but I don't have a USB storage device which is larger than 16gb

It is your first job to do.

Than backup your DATA.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/648-restore-backup-user-system-files.html

 

[karlsnooks]

Well young man. You just march yourself to your local electronics store, be it Best Buy, Frys, Target, WallMart or whatever and get youself an external usb drive of 300 GB or more.

There are only two kinds of people in this world:
Those who make backups
and
Those who which they had.

It is not a question of your hard drive dying,
the question is when!

Death for hard dirives is like death for humans--inevitable.

With the marvelous capabilities of the Win 7 Backup and Restore, you get a free, working, trouble-free backup software.

Yes, I know some have had troubles. But some people are capable of messing up anything. I use, very religiously, Win 7 Backup and Restore which has pulled my chestnuts out of the fire more than once.

 

[daeniken2]

Well, I might be a typical female user regarding this question, because my computer always gets cluttered after a while with all the software I download, not use, or even delete later but the system is still full of crap so reinstalling the whole stuff just seems to be an easier option. I'm a huge fan of System Mechanic and other utilities but I don't know if they really solve the problem.
With Vista it was obvious, because it just put everything in the Windows.old and it was fine. I tried the same with Win7, pressing F9 at boot but the interface was I guess some Asus-stuff, unusual for me and warned me that all my stuff will be deleted so I didn't go any further.
I don't really need to delete everything, just reinstall Win7...so that it will be nice and clean again and I can make it cluttered and messy again

 

[daeniken2]

You are right about the backup actually, I usually back up the important stuff to dvds, pendrives, whatever. I used to have an external hard drive..but it fell off the table when I fell through its cable *sigh*.

 

[karlsnooks]

And yes, since I'm such a strong advocate of Win 7 Backup & Restore, then I will more than gladly walk you through the procedure which is actually extremely simple.

We do have some excellent tutorials on Win 7 Backup and Restore, written by a man of exceptional capabilities, Shawn Brink.

I will also give you the info you need, rather than the entire enchilada in less words than I've used in this post.

 

[theog]

My Charlotte is the same.
But do make your Recovery disk, as one day the Recovery Partition will not work.

 

[karlsnooks]

Getting rid of all those programs which you no longer need and cleaning up your computer can be accomplished with great ease.

The how and so forth of the cleanup is something that you need to learn and can use from now till the day the netbook dies. May it live in peace.

If you decide to clean the clutter up, let us know and we will point you to the Good Housekeeping procedures.

You can start right now by using CCleaner. (link in my sig).

 

[karlsnooks]

Theog is very correct. That System Repair Disc can be a life-saver.

Do you have an external USB CD/DVD unit?

If not, go get one. Any old cheap one will do and sure will make life easier when dealing with a netbook.

 

[daeniken2]

You are right guys I have to admit. I will buy an external drive I need to back up the stuff, though it might not be surprising that only a rather small part of it is what I actually NEED, the vast majority is music and British sitcoms

I guess I don't really need to reinstall the whole system, just cleap up the things I don't need. Can you recommend one software that can do everything which is needed? I do have CCleaner, and SysMech and even TuneUp, but I don't think that I really need all of them. I convince myself that I do because if I run them one after another they can always find something new to fix so none of them seems to be 100%. (SysMech and TuneUp constantly argue about internet settings, in my opinion both of them think that what the other one thinks is stupid.) Also, which uninstall software to use (I have Revo, but I don't know if it's the best).

I do have an external DVD drive (Acer something, I can check it), but it doesn't seem to work with any of the Win7 laptops we have.

 

[karlsnooks]

Use CCleaner. Throw the others away.

We need to clean out only that which needs to be cleaned and we need to be in control.

There is no single magic program which by running on your computer, then all is hunky-dory. There is no Hogwart wizard to work such magic.

First run CCleaner.

Run both the Cleaner portion and the Registry portion thereof. Don't worry your system will not crash and burn. In fact CCleaner, before cleaning the registry, will ask you if you want to make a backup of the registry. I NEVER do. I've never had any problems with CCleaner. It's registry cleaning, since it shows you what it would be deleting has pointed out unruly an spyware programs on my computer or programs that want to save info in the registry long after I've deleted the program.

Get that done. Then we will go to the next step.