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Windows XP forum: Crashed, Installed another XP, Missing Documents... Help!

by: Rockazella August 1, 2012 10:59 PM PDT

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Crashed, Installed another XP, Missing Documents... Help!

by Rockazella - 8/1/12 10:59 PM

My computer wouldnt boot saying there was a missing/bad file "system32\hal.dll"

I attamped to repair but there was some issue.

I then installed another copy of WIndows XP to a different directory.

I log in, but I can't see the old My Documents anywhere. It says I have 55GB of data on the hard drive, but I can only account for about 15GB when I look at each visible folder. I'm assuming my old documents are still there somewhere, but where?


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Re: documents

by Kees_B Moderator - 8/1/12 11:57 PM

In Reply to: Crashed, Installed another XP, Missing Documents... Help! by Rockazella

It still should be there. Keep searching.

A program like Treesize Free from http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/ might be useful to fiind 40 GB. You might have to take ownership once you found them; google XP TAKE OWNERSHIP for that.

Can't you simply restore those documents from your backup?

Kees


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Nod to Treesize and another bootable CD to look around with.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 8/2/12 9:35 AM

In Reply to: Crashed, Installed another XP, Missing Documents... Help! by Rockazella

Read http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ which works to let you look around a crashed or working machine for files as well as copy them out before you possibly corrupt them with repairs.
Bob


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Since you re-installed ...

by Edward ODaniel - 8/3/12 8:40 PM

In Reply to: Crashed, Installed another XP, Missing Documents... Help! by Rockazella

XP into a different directory your original XP installation will be present and unchanged.

If you installed the new XP onto a different PARTITION your original Documents and Settings directory will still be present on the original partition.

If you installed the new XP on the same partition as the old then you will only have the single Documents and Settings directory and it will contain the new Administrator, All Users, Default User, and possibly LocalService and NetworkService accounts as well as all the old accounts. The EXCEPTION will be that if you originally had a JohnsAccount with the original installation and have created another JohnsAccount in the new installation the new account will overwrite the old.

Once you have located the proper user's documents you will most likely need to take ownership of them before you can do much with them.


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